Steven Solomon ran better than he has ever run before topping his nine-year-old personal best to power into the men’s 400m semi-finals on the Olympic track in Tokyo.

Steven Solomon Instagram

He stopped the clock at 44.94 to finish second in the fourth of six heats on a brutally hot and humid Tokyo morning.

 He will be competing in the semi-final on Monday 2 August at 9:05 pm AEST with his goal to make the finals on Thursday at 10:00 pm AEST

On his Instagram: “In his post-race interview, Steve quoted “I knew, physically, I was in good shape but being able to execute physically is a different skill to being physically fit. The fact I was able to do that today has given me great confidence heading into tomorrow’s semi-final.”

 Watch Steve as he ran second in his heat, setting  a personal best and automatically qualifying  for the 400m semi-finals: https://twitter.com/7olympics/status/1421701866895806464?s=21