23-year-old sprinter Rohan Browning (Fr 2016) is the first Australian male to qualify for the 100M sprint since 2004. He is currently the fastest man in Australia and the third fastest of all time after reaching 10.05 in Queensland in March. Commentators are speculating that it’s only a matter of time until he beats this record.
Early in his career he played soccer, before switching to rugby and then athletics. Sydney local Rohan attended Trinity Grammar School and is currently studying for a Bachelor of Laws at the University of Sydney. We caught up with Rohan recently to discover how he’s feeling about the forthcoming Olympics.
How did you feel when you received the call up for the Tokyo Olympics team?
I felt relief above all else. Not a day has gone by since I was sixteen that I haven’t used the Olympics as a rudder to guide and motivate my day-to-day happenings. I came into Drew’s as a fresher in 2016 with my eye on the 2016 Olympic Games. I was injured that year and wasn’t able to qualify. Consequently, I doubled down on training through that period to try and catch up for lost time. I wish I’d spent that period more involved in the social side of College life. It’s not always easy to juggle high level sport with the vivacious social life college offers, especially as a lowly fresher. With hindsight, now that I’ve finally made the Olympics, I would not have achieved this without the perspective on life and balance that I gained during my College years.
How do you think Tokyo will compare to the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games?
Well, it won’t be packed to the rafters with sun-kissed and stylishly tattooed Gold Coast locals, nor do I anticipate any SinCity after party antics. Those are two of the obvious cultural differences that jump to mind. Tokyo will be far from business as usual, with strict quarantine requirements, all of which put my restless mind at ease and will protect the broader Australian Community when the athletes return home.
Some of my favourite COVID restrictions include ‘no talking in the dining hall’ and ‘no cheering in the stadiums’. I’m sure it will be surreal, although I have no doubt that the hosts will maintain the festival atmosphere that the Games are known for. Certainly, the calibre of effort on the sporting field and in play will be as fierce as ever before.
What first attracted you to athletics?
I couldn’t get any game time in my high school 1st XV, the glaring shortfall on my sporting CV. I started in Track and Field in middle school with an eye on making a schoolboy national final and when I finally started to reap the rewards of delayed puberty, I realised I could actually win the thing.
How did your time at St Andrew’s College help your sporting career?
Initially I thought athletics might offer a path to college overseas, or at least a few bonus ATAR points into uni. Ultimately, I discovered that only UTS and UNSW accept those. In the end I was accepted into Drew’s to study Arts/Law at Sydney and I decided that I’d prefer to remain in the city so I could stay with my high school coach Andrew Murphy, who is my coach to this day. Drew’s made it possible for me to import the US style sport / education system to my hometown. It helped me mature as a young man, living out of home with just the right amount of support. Elite sport can be such a parochial bubble and it’s hard to get any outside perspective when you’re inside the echo chamber.
The social life that Drew’s delivered gave me perspective on balance and taught me the importance of approaching sport in a playful way, even at the most crucial, career defining junctions and in the face of both triumph and disaster. I met my closest mates there, a few of whom I currently live with. I’ll always look back on my college years fondly, I think they will remain some of the most formative years of my life.
What’s your most memorable moment from St Andrew’s?
Cannot be spoken of.
What was your nickname at Drew’s (and where did that come from)?
Towards the end of my tenure a few mates were calling me Roy. I always thought it was funny because you don’t meet many young men called Roy anymore. I’d like to bring it back into style. Like any good nickname it happened organically and resulted in a Facebook name change.