Camryn ran 13.46 seconds in the 100m hurdles, just outside her personal best of 13.43s, to place third in her heat and secure 1056 points. She then cleared 1.80m in the high jump. She is in eighth position with 2034 points,ahead of the shot put and 200m later today.

Tori competing in the first heat ran a personal best of 13.62s (1033pts) in the hurdles and then followed that with a 1.71m high jump clearance. The 28-year-old from Brisbane is 20th after two events.

Tori and Camryn are the first Australians to compete in the heptathlon since Beijing 2008. 

The Australian 100m hurdles trio of Michelle Jenneke, Celeste Mucci and Liz Clay were unable to progress from the repechage races.

Michelle did so well to be on the start line following a fall in her heat which injured her hamstring. She was able to get out well before protecting herself from further injury to run 13.86s.

“Honestly, I'm really proud of myself,” Michelle said. 

“We discovered yesterday afternoon that what actually happened is, as I was going over that third hurdle, I ruptured one of my hamstring tendons.

“So I ran today with one less hamstring than usual and obviously that was pretty difficult.

“But I said to the doctor ‘Can I still run? I didn't want my Olympic campaign to end the way it was yesterday, and I really just wanted to give it my all today.

“I knew making that semi final, missing one of your hamstrings, is probably pretty impossible, but I just wanted to prove to myself. I guess to the rest of Australia, I've got some grit in me and I'm not going to give up easily.”

Liz Clay was fifth in her heat and the fastest of the Australians with a run of 12.99s. The slowest qualifier to the semi-finals was 12.91s.

“I was so confident today,” Liz said. 

“I warmed up great, had a great practice start. I don't know whether it was just the backing up of rounds got me. I just tried to send it and it wasn't enough. So disappointing.

“ I couldn't have done any more. You can always go back and look at changes that you could make to the program and stuff, but I thought we did it perfectly. I still had a pretty good season. It's just not finishing the way that I would have liked to.”

Celeste was also fifth and her heat and was disappointed with her 13.00 seconds performance.  

Peter Bol and Joseph Deng were aiming to improve on their heats runs in the 800m repechage, and progress to join fellow Aussie Peyton Craig in the semis. 

But neither runner was able to go with the moves in the final stages of their heats and didn’t progress.

Pete was fourth in his heat in 1:46.12 and Joseph was fifth in his heat in 1:48.58.

“I'm actually quite happy and quite proud of myself for putting this Australian jersey on again. Three-time Olympian, so can't really complain,” Peter said.

“We're racing against the best in the world. So if you're playing in other sports and you're finishing top 48 in the world, you're pretty happy. I’m proud of my team. Proud of everyone that's competed here, including Joe and Peyton. We're going to be supporting Peyton throughout the semifinals tomorrow.”

Joseph was happy with his first Olympic experience despite not being able to produce his best season due to injuries.

“It was a pretty good experience, actually,” Joseph said.

“I didn't expect to be here racing after missing Nationals. It is what it is. I'm happy with it.

Joseph is happy with his move to train in South Africa and he is already thinking about the 2025 World Championships.

In the evening session in Paris, Georgia Griffith and Jessica Hull will run the 1500m semi-finals from 3:35am ASET. Both athletes were superb in the heats and have had brilliant seasons. Jess especially with her 2000m world record.  

Camryn and Tory round out their opening day of the heptathlon with the shot put from 3:35am and the 200m at 4:55am.

Andrew Reid