Tiaan Whelpton had a feeling the 60m finalists at the ACT Championships in Canberra were set to post “some pretty crazy times”.

The Kiwi sprinter’s hunch proved correct.

Whelpton smashed a 30-year-old New Zealand record over the distance by crossing in 6.50s, achieving automatic qualification for the world indoor championships in China in March.

The 24-year-old went well under the previous national mark of 6.59, set by Gus Nketia in 1995, and finished second to Australian runner Lachlan Kennedy (6.43) in Saturday night’s final.

Whelpton earlier recorded a 6.52 in the heats but that time was discounted due to an illegal level of wind. He knew that if the conditions played their part, a fast track meant that time could be matched in the final.

“Me and all the boys were just sitting there behind the line saying, ‘Please just give us a legal wind, because we know we’ll put on some crazy times’,” Whelpton told Newstalk ZB. “And man, oh man, did we.

“When I heard [Kennedy] dropped a 6.43 and I wasn’t too far behind, I knew the times would be pretty quick. But in my mind, I was like, well, if you ran that quick, it must have been windy.

“But to my surprise, the wind was only +1.6, so everything was totally legal. So I was over the moon. I was super stoked.”

Whelpton’s main aim in the meet was to book a spot at the world indoors, targeting an automatic-qualifying time of 6.55. He knew he would have another chance to crack that mark this weekend in Sydney but headed to Canberra quietly confident the additional event would be unnecessary.

“In the back of my head, I think I believed it, because I never even booked accommodation for Sydney,” he said. “So at least now I don’t have to cancel a hotel room. Now I can just fly home.”

Whelpton, born and raised in South Africa before moving to Christchurch in 2019, credited his record-breaking run to new coach Angus Ross, whom he described as “one of the top sprint biomechanists and strength-and-conditioning coaches in the world”.

Working in the gym alongside shot-putters Tom Walsh and Nick Palmer, Whelpton had been racking up weightlifting personal-bests and translating that power to the track.

“We’re still figuring things out and the training I’m doing with this coach is very different to what I was doing in South Africa – what I was doing in South Africa ended up not working for me,” he said.

“To gym with those boys is pretty inspiring because they’re freakishly strong and they’re always there helping me push the boat out a little bit. I gotta give them a shout out for helping me get here too.”

With the boost received by this run, Whelpton has his sights firmly set on joining Walsh in the New Zealand athletics team at the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028. When setting a 100m personal best of 10.14 in 2023, Whelpton came through the 60m mark at around 6.59, whereas his 6.50 time would translate to a sub-10 run in the glamour event.

“We’ve definitely been hyper-focused on this 60m,” he said. “Long-term, four-year plan, we’re thinking 2028 Olympics. And so this year was only really supposed to be a ‘let’s find our feet’ kind of year. Let’s try some stuff out. We weren’t expecting to shoot up this quickly, so it’s definitely a welcome surprise.

“If I can just hold my speed for as long as I can, I should be coming through in some pretty crazy 100m times.”