In-form sprinter Tiaan Whelpton chasing Olympic success

The who's who of New Zealand athletics will compete in the inaugural international track meet in Christchurch this weekend.

Among them, in-form sprinter Tiaan Whelpton, looking to write himself into the history books.

"My biggest goal is to be the first New Zealander to run under 10 seconds," he said.

He recently broke the national 60m record — qualifying for the World Indoor Championships in March.

And in Auckland a fortnight ago, he was just two-hundredths of a second off the 100m record too — recording a personal best of 10.10.

"My first 60 [metres] is world class, but my last 40 we're just working on the ability to bounce and maintain speed so, once we figure that out, I think we'll be well on our way to nines [seconds]," said Whelpton.

By "we", the 24-year-old's referring to his new coach Dr Angus Ross — who sees striking similarities between Whelpton and the world's fastest man.

"He's not 5 foot 10, or the typical height for a sprinter — he's quite a bit taller like Usain Bolt was," said Ross.

"And that gives different problems and different gifts."

Ross is known for his cutting edge techniques. A former decathlete and bobsleigh Olympian, he's helped many of our top athletes in strength and conditioning and his speciality — explosive power.

"I'm stealing ideas wherever I can find them and trying to bring them to the way he runs.

"I've worked in cycling for a while and they've had some big revolutions and records are improving... and some of that's down to gear changing, so can we do that in running?" said Ross.

The esteemed coach said Whelpton's strength was something to behold.

"You put him against any of those [Olympic] finalists in the world right now and I doubt any would beat him in pure power.

"So now it's the finesse part of running — his rhythm and elasticity — that's the next piece," he said.

The duo's over-arching goal is the LA 2028 Games — with the hope to automatically qualify for the Olympics by running 10 seconds flat or faster.

"If we don't get there, we've messed it up," said Ross.

"It's getting there to compete and win the bloody thing... not just turn up."

For Whelpton, being under the tutorage full-time of Ross has given him newfound confidence that he has what it takes to foot it with the very best.

"There have been so many times I was thinking 'maybe it's time to hang up the spikes'.. but right now, I'm more excited and more hungry than ever to keep going — and keep getting faster."