Rising sprint sensation Aidan Murphy has gone within a whisker of breaking one of the oldest records in Australian athletics with a stunning 400m run of 44.44 seconds at the Oceania championships in Darwin.
With countrymen Thomas Reynolds and Luke van Ratingen pushing him all the way on Tuesday, the 22-year-old Murphy took full advantage of the hot conditions at Arafura Stadium.
He stripped 0.37 off his personal best to move to second on the Australian all time list, just six hundredths of a second shy of Darren Clark's national record, which has stood untouched since the 1988 Seoul Olympics.
"We're right there," said Murphy.
"If the national record isn't broken this year, it's just a matter of time.
"Depending on who it is I don't know, but we're all just around the corner and slowly chipping away at that milestone."
