The women’s 100m sprint at the Paris Olympics will be run and done in a tick over 10 seconds.
It will take the winners of the 4x100m relay team a little over 40 seconds.
The journey to the starting blocks however, can take the athletes a lifetime.
It is something Bond’s Bree Masters has been contemplating since learning she had qualified to contest the 100m and 4x100m relay at her first Olympics, less than five years after returning to the track after more than a decade away from the sport.
“If you had told little Bree, or even Bree from five years ago that she’d be where she is today, I would have thought you were crazy,” she said.
“From switching from beach to track, overcoming doubts and setbacks, and juggling a marketing degree and work, the journey to the Olympics has been extremely tough but nothing short of incredible and I’m extremely proud of myself.”
Masters seemed destined for a career in dance, then it was beach sprinting that occupied her time for a decade – a sport where she is a former World and Australian champion.
Then in December 2019, at age 24, she was convinced to return to the track.
The 29-year-old Bond University Marketing and Public Relations graduate has become a mainstay of the Australian relay team since making a stunning debut in the green and gold with a PB of 11.29 at the World Championships in Eugene Oregon in 2022, the fastest time by an Australian at a global meet in 15 years.
She has also run on every sub 44 second Australian relay team since 2021, and is the most prolific member in the history of Australian relay racing.
At the World Athletics relay Championships in the Bahamas in May, the team of Masters, Ebony Lane, Ella Connolly and Torrie Lewis broke their own national record in a second place finish to Germany in the heats to book a lane for the Aussies at their first Olympics since the 2000 Sydney Games.
The Aussie side’s time was the fifth fastest of the event, a new high for the national team.
“Fifth in the world is incredible,” Masters said. 
“(Coach) Cathy Walsh told me that is the highest placing that we’ve ever had as a women’s 4x100m team at these championships, and that is just so exciting given there’s so much more we can do together as a group.
“I think we’re a definite medal chance in Paris.