Calab Law just helped end a 52-year wait to secure Australia a 4x100m relay gold medal at the 2026 Commonwealth Games. The 22-year-old sprinter is already a World U20 bronze medallist and a Paris Olympian with a blistering 200m personal best of 20.21 seconds. Despite that massive recent momentum on the flat track, the Australian sensation just initiated a dramatic career pivot.

Law has officially decided to abandon his primary event and make the 110m hurdles his new competitive focus. With the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics less than two years away, he recently completed his first hurdles training session at the Queensland Sport and Athletics Centre under coach Andrew Iselin. This massive discipline switch may appear incredibly sudden to casual fans, but Law possesses significant prior experience navigating the barriers.

He aggressively competed in hurdling events until around the age of 17, when a massive physical transformation completely altered his stride pattern. Law experienced a rapid growth spurt, shooting from roughly 172cm to 185cm, which left him struggling to correctly pace himself between the hurdles. His coaching staff subsequently decided to temporarily shelf the hurdles and dedicate his entire training regimen to flat sprinting. Five years after that biological adjustment, the newly crowned champion is prepared to give the barriers a second chance.

That flat-sprint focus culminated in one of the biggest victories of his career at the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. Law teamed with Josh Azzopardi, Lachlan Kennedy, and Rohan Browning in the men’s 4x100m relay final, clocking 38.07 seconds to edge Canada by 0.04 seconds for Australia’s first gold in the event since 1974. This historic championship gold capped off a rapid rise through the junior and senior global ranks.

The switch does not end his sprinting career

Law first announced himself globally by winning 200m bronze at the 2022 World Athletics U20 Championships in Cali, Colombia. He clocked 20.42 seconds in the semifinals and 20.48 in the final to secure Australia’s first medal at the meet.

Later that same year, he ran a 20.50 at the World Championships in Eugene, becoming the first Australian teenager to reach a global 200m semifinal. He built upon that international breakthrough by sweeping the 100m and 200m titles at the 2023 Pacific Games in Honiara, setting up a string of major global championship appearances.

His sprinting speed earned him selection for the Paris 2024 Olympics, where he represented Australia in both the men’s 200m and the 4x100m relay. He returned to the global stage at the 2025 World Championships in Tokyo to contest both events once again, constantly lowering his times and refining his race mechanics. The valuable international experience gained from those major championships will directly support his continued contributions to the national relay squad.