CALAB LAW

BIOGRAPHY

Following an exceptional 2022 season, where he won bronze at the World U20 Championships, over the last two years we have watched 20-year-old Calab Law, mature into our best senior 200m athlete.

An Indigenous athlete from the Wakka Wakka tribe, near Cherbourg Queensland, Calab’s 2022 campaign was extraordinary for the then 18-year-old who made his junior and senior Australian team debuts within a month. He was named in the Australian team for the World U20 Championships in Cali Columbia, in August, but also selected in the Australian senior team for the World Championships, where at 18 years and 200 days, he became the youngest Australian male selected for 11 years and the fifth youngest ever Australian male at the World Championships.

In July 2022 in Eugene at the World Championships Calab set a 200m PB, clocking 20.50 to progress from the heat into the semi-final. He created history becoming the first Australian teenager ever to qualify for a World or Olympic 200m semi-final. He clocked 20.72 in the semi-final. Just 15 days at the World U20 Championships in Columbia, he won a bronze medal in the final in 20.48 seconds after clocking a sensational 20.42 in the semi-finals. It was the first global medal by an Australian in the men’s 200m for three decades.

His 20.42 200m time in the semi-final missed the Australian U20 record by 0.01 seconds, was the fastest ever time by an Australian junior at the championships and moved him from #16 to #8 Australian senior all-time 200m sprinter. 
He would be hampered during the next summer, suffering a stress fracture in his spine at the start of 2023.
Calab’s 2023/24 season has shown continued maturity as he as emerged into Australia’s leading 200m athlete. IN December he won the Pacific Games ran, then the National title in April 2024, while being a regular on the third leg of the National 4x100m relay team, which in May at the World Relays secured Olympic selection.  In June he won the Oceania 200m title.

Calab Law is an Indigenous athlete from the Wakka Wakka tribe from near Cherbourg Queensland. 

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Calab Law started athletics aged 11. “My Aunty Karla was a 400m runner and saw potential in me, so I gave it a go.” He initially was a hurdler and long jumper. At the Australian Little Athletics Championships in 2017, he placed third in the 80m hurdles and was sixth in the 200m hurdles. But after a few years he stopped athletics (aged 13-15) due to injuries. “I started back at 15 with my now coach Andrew Iselin and have been improving on my sprints since then.”
In early 2020, aged 16, Calab clocked PBs of 10.95 (100m) and 21.76 (200m) in the shortened season due to COVID.
Over the summer of 2020/21, Calab, destroyed his PBs, in the 100m he went from 10.95 to 10.53 and over 200m from 21.76 to 21.12. He also won the Australian U20 Championships despite being only aged 17. He was selected in the Australian Junior team, that did not travel to the World U20 Championships due to COVID.  

He also added another element to his training.
“In the lead up to the World U20 season I started to pick up my training by adding an extra session with Ash Moloney and was finally successful in breaking 21 seconds in the 200m and have been working at that time bit by bit.”
His times in the summer of 2022 were stunning. At 100m he ran PBs of 10.48, then 10.36 and won silver at Nationals. Over 200m they were even more impressive, 21.11, 21.05, 20.67! then 20.63! Plus a 20.50 with a slightly illegal 2.2m/s wind. He was now the fourth fastest junior all-time. He was part of a wave of emerging junior sprinters, including South Australian Aiden Murphy who had taken the Australian U20 record down to 20.41 in February.
He was selected in the Australian junior team in the 100m, 200m and 4x100m relay for the World U20 Championships in Cali, Columbia in August. The first occasion the relay team competed together in late May, they broke the National junior record clocking 39.30.

His third place in the open Nationals 200m and second at Oceania, tallied sufficient World Athletics points for his senior debut at the World Championships in July.

Indigenous: Calab is from the Wakka Wakka tribe from near Cherbourg Queensland….Stats on his 20.42 200m (3 Aug 2022): missed the Australian U20 record by 0.01 seconds, was the fastest ever time by an Australian junior at the championships and moved him from #16 to #8 Australian senior all-time 200m sprinter… Sporting Hero: Cathy Freeman, she gave me hope that being a world and Olympic champion is possible as a fellow indigenous sports person…Calab as the hero: “I want someone to look up to me like I look up to Cathy or look up to other Indigenous sprinters - that’s really what I want by the end of my career.”…Sporting Career Highlight: Winning bronze at the world Junior championships in Cali Columbia 2022…Indigenous ambassador: for Share a Yarn initiative. The programme connects athletes with First Nations communities in order to learn about their cultures, lands, histories and people, to enable them to then share what they have learned within the wider sporting world.

@9 June 2024 david.tarbotton@athletics.org.au
World Athletics Profile https://worldathletics.org/athletes/australia/calab-law-14874649