Louie Hinchliffe showed no signs of big stage nerves on his Olympic debut, preferring to take down big names instead.
Hinchliffe lowered the colours of 100m world champion and Olympic favourite Noah Lyles of the USA as he clocked the third quickest time of his career in the heats at the Stade de France.
The 22-year-old is coached at the University of Houston by nine-time Olympic champion Carl Lewis and clocked a 9.95 second personal best at the NCAA Championships earlier this year.
His first round time of 9.98 seconds was just three hundredths slower but, aided by the super-quick purple track in Paris, he knows he’ll need to be quicker than ever before this weekend.
"It was good to get him back after London, that was a good feeling," said Hinchliffe, after beating Lyles to the line.
A seriously impressive performance from Team GB's Louie Hinchcliffe in the men's 100m heats.👏#BBCOlympics #Olympics #Paris2024 pic.twitter.com/hEvHvHgdUz
— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) August 3, 2024
"I wasn’t really thinking too much about him, he wasn’t really near me, so I wasn’t really thinking too much about who was in the race.
"I think the pressure and environment will bring more out of me, trying to get to an Olympic final.
"I’m just running my races at the moment, I’m not really thinking too much about results, I don’t really want to chase results.
"The atmosphere is amazing. I think that environment brings the best out of all of us. You have to make the most of it and use it to your advantage.
"My coach told me to run my own race and not get distracted by it all, just focus on me."
Lyles was first to congratulate Hinchliffe - but insists it won't be happening again.
"He's a talented kid, he ran well in the NCAA so I knew he was going to run well, he had it in him," he said.
"I was expecting they would just fall in line. They didn’t, they took it as a chance of having a shot at me. To be honest, I should have expected that knowing it was the Olympics. But this is my first time in an Olympic 100m, that’s on me, I won’t let that happen again."
Lyle’s American team-mates Kenneth Bednarek and Fred Kerley ran the quickest times in qualifying but Hinchliffe was third fastest overall.
Team GB's Zharnel Hughes also advanced to the semi-finals but Jeremiah Azu was disqualified for a false start.
"Unfortunately I had an injury last month and London was my first race of the season for the 100m," said Hughes, who clocked 10.03 secs, an encouraging run after picking up a hamstring injury earlier this summer.
"I’m using the rounds to get sharper and sharper, but I’m fine, I’m not worried about anything.
"I'm okay with it [the performance]. I could have got a better start, I was a bit lazy.
"It’s an amazing atmosphere. I was listening to it from the warm up area and I was just blown away because we haven't heard this noise before. It almost sounds like football is going on inside here.
"Anytime you stand outside a football stadium you can definitely hear the crowd. It's so lovely to hear the fans being here, the support when you come out is absolutely amazing."
Sportsbeat 2024