Kiwi sprint star Zoe Hobbs has spoken of her relief after qualifying for the Paris Olympics, following a personal-best performance in Switzerland on Monday.
Hobbs set a new national record of 10.96s in the heats at the World Athletics Continental Tour Challenger in Chaux-de-Fonds.
Her blistering time sees her meet the Olympic qualifying standard, which makes her eligible for New Zealand selection for the Paris-staged event.
Should she be selected, she will be just the fifth New Zealand woman ever to compete in the 100m at the Olympics.
Hobbs revealed she didn't expect to meet the Olympic standard so soon, just one day after the qualification period began.
"Absolutely over the moon to have done that," she told AM. "Didn't think that I would run sub-11 in the heat, which is where I ran that time.
"But the main goal was just to do the Olympic qualifying standard, which opened on July 1, so to do it really early is a massive weight off my shoulders."
Having already met the qualifying standard in the heats, Hobbs refused to rest on her laurels, going on to win the final as well.
Despite the heavy workload and rush of the earlier heat, she maintained her composure to edge Gambian Gina Bass with a time of 11.13s.
"For me, it was a bit of judgment on how I felt, because I had already done two races within the past few three days," Hobbs said.
"I just went off how I was feeling, and I felt okay body-wise, and just gave it another crack. Unfortunately, it wasn't as quite as fast as the heat.
"But it was just another opportunity to go out and run.
"I think in the heat I was a lot more relaxed, there was no expectation, and the temperature was particularly low at the start of the day when we did that heat.
"It was 15 degrees, the wind was swelling quite a lot, and the races prior were headwinds, so in my mind, it was just being more relaxed and having no expectations, and running relaxed really helped.
"And in the final, the conditions weren't probably as favourable as it was in the heat, which helped, but there was also a false start, it's lots of little things."
