Sebastian's Story
The sprinting performances over the last two seasons by 18-year-old Sydneysider Sebastian Sultana have been breathtaking. In a whirlwind few weeks, in April/May he has won the Australian senior 100m title, the youngest winner in 39 years, and helped the Australian 4x100m relay qualify for the Paris Olympics.
An active kid, Sebastian started playing soccer when he was aged five, progressing to athletics and Oztag when he was 10. He got involved with sport because his friends were. After realising he had some speed at his school carnivals, at age 11 he joined a squad with his current coach Greg Smith. His first athletics club was Hills District Little Athletics.
Aged 15 he started full-time training, clocking a best of 10.90 in the 100m. By 16 he had run 10.59 and won the national under-18 sprint double. Sebastian made a big leap forward just after his 17th birthday in late 2022 where he ran three consecutive PBs over a month – 10.53, 10.42, then 10.27 – the last time breaking the Australian under-18 record. By the end of summer in March 2023, he was also running under 21 seconds (20.79) for 200m and won the national under-20 sprint double.
But things didn’t go to plan for the 2023-24 season. After running 20.96 in early November, he injured his hamstring and didn’t race for 11 weeks. Sebastian regards recovering from this injury as one of his biggest challenges in his career so far. He resumed his season in late January, clocking a stunning wind-assisted 10.14 in the 100m. It was under the Australian under-20 100m record, but disallowed with a slightly over the allowable wind reading of 2.2m/s.
He continued to progress, winning the NSW title in a 10.25 PB. At nationals, running in the open events, he clocked a wind-legal semi-final time of 10.17, ahead of taking the final in 10.27 into a headwind. At 18, he became the youngest winner since Fred Martin 39 years earlier. He also clocked a PB of 20.61 in the 200m heats.
In mid-summer Sebastian helped the national junior team set an Australian record of 39.12, then he was drafted into the senior team, which in May at the World Relays in the Bahamas secured qualification for the men’s 4x100m for the Paris Olympics.
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