Charlee Vincent

Born: February 6, 2009  |  Nationality: Australian  |  Events: 100m, 200m, 60m (indoor)  |  Club: Ignition Athletics, Queensland  |  School: King’s Christian College, Reedy Creek, Queensland

Growing Up on the Gold Coast: The Making of a Sprinter

Charlee Vincent was born on February 6, 2009, in Queensland, Australia, and has grown up in the southeastern corner of the state — a region that, alongside Brisbane, has become one of the most productive development pipelines for young Australian track and field talent in the country. She attends King’s Christian College at Reedy Creek, a multi-campus school on the Gold Coast hinterland that has a well-established reputation for producing elite junior athletes across multiple sports.

The details of exactly when and how Vincent first laced up a pair of sprint spikes are not extensively documented in public record, but the evidence of her early competitive life paints a clear picture: she was fast from a young age and committed to the sport early. By the time she was competing in the 13-years age group at school athletics carnivals, she was already one of the standout sprinters not just at her school but across the entire Associated Public Schools (APS) system in Queensland.

King’s Christian College’s athletics program has provided an ideal launching pad. The school competes in the APS competition — one of Queensland’s premier school sport competitions — and has consistently produced athletes who reach state and national levels. For Vincent, the school environment put her in regular contact with other talented sprinters her age, including Alyssa McDonald, who has been a close training partner and relay teammate throughout their junior careers, and who competes alongside Vincent in the same age group.

The APS Years: Winning Everything in Sight

Vincent’s school athletics career was marked by consistent dominance from an early age. In August 2022, when Vincent was thirteen years old, King’s Christian College won both the Junior (ages 9–12) and Senior (ages 12–17) Athletics APS Premierships — the first time in the school’s history it had achieved the double. Vincent was one of the key contributors in the 13-years age group, winning her division of the 100m and taking out the 200m double alongside McDonald. The group also set a new APS record in the 4x100m relay. That relay performance — a squad of 13-year-old girls running under the previous school record and demolishing the competition by more than four seconds — offered an early preview of what Vincent and her teammates would be capable of in relay formats.

By 2023, Vincent had stepped up her game further. She was named a Queensland State Champion at the state level athletics championships, one of only three King’s athletes — along with McDonald and Nylah Goble-Lote — who could claim that distinction that year. All three qualified to represent Queensland at the national championships in Perth in December. The school’s sports awards ceremony in November 2023 noted that it was “impossible to split” the three athletes, all being state champions heading to nationals. It was that kind of year: a group of teenagers from a Gold Coast school quietly building something remarkable.

In 2023, Vincent also logged her first individually documented personal best on the World Athletics database: a 100m time of 12.14 seconds, set on November 4 at the Queensland All Schools Track and Field Championships, where she was competing as a 14-year-old in the Under-16 age division. At the 2024 Queensland All Schools Track and Field Championships held in late October and early November, she returned to QSAC and won the Under-16 Girls 100m final in 12.30 seconds — running in tough conditions with a headwind — and reached the 200m final, recording 25.51 seconds.

Club Athletics: Ignition Athletics

Outside of school competition, Vincent has competed for Ignition Athletics Club, a Queensland Athletics-affiliated club based at Somerset College in Mudgeeraba on the Gold Coast. Ignition has a philosophy of nurturing talent from grassroots to elite level, and was founded by Glynis Nunn-Cearns — the dual heptathlon gold medallist from the 1982 Brisbane Commonwealth Games and 1984 Los Angeles Olympics — and Leanne Hines-Smith, a Level 4 accredited coach with decades of experience in the Queensland athletics system. It is an environment that takes junior development seriously and has built a culture of producing athletes who understand what it takes to perform at national level.

Vincent’s relay squad from Ignition — featuring herself, Thewbelle Philp, Alyssa McDonald, and Minka Te Heu Heu Tukino — had been competing together at club level and showing consistent form heading into the 2025 national season. That foundation would pay off spectacularly at the biggest stage.

The 2025 Australian Athletics Championships: National Record

The 2025 Australian Athletics Championships were held in Perth in early April, and for Vincent — still just 16 years old — the national stage delivered a career-defining moment. Representing Queensland in the Under-18 Girls 4x100m relay alongside Thewbelle Philp, Alyssa McDonald, and Amaya Mearns, Vincent and her teammates ran 44.70 seconds to claim the national title and shatter the previous Australian Under-18 record of 45.48 — a mark that had stood since 2014. Notably, the run also stood as a new Australian Under-20 record. The silver medallists, Western Australia, ran 44.84 — itself faster than the old record — which indicates just how emphatic the Queensland quartet’s performance was.

Australian Athletics’ social media coverage captured the moment with appropriate flair, leading with the line “Queensland girls don’t run… they fly.” The performance announced this group of sprinters to the national athletics community in the most compelling possible way. Vincent anchored or led off the squad — results documents show her listed first in relay lineups — and the collective 44.70 effort translated to an average individual split of 11.175 seconds per leg, a remarkable figure for athletes in their mid-teens.

Vincent’s individual 200m campaign at the same championships also had her through the heats, qualifying for the final in a time of 25.33 seconds. In the 100m final, a disqualification (DQ) was recorded against her name — a frustrating outcome, but one that did not diminish the impact of the relay performance that had already cemented the day.

The 2025 Season Continues: More Records and Improved Times

The momentum from Perth carried through the rest of 2025. On November 1, Vincent recorded a 200m personal best of 25.09 seconds at a Queensland Athletics meet — her first documented sub-25.5 run over the distance as a 16-year-old. Then, on November 16, at the QSAC State Athletics Facility in Nathan, Brisbane, her relay squad delivered another milestone: a 4x200m relay time of 1:36.99, ratified as both the Australian Under-18 record and the national Under-18 record, annotated in the World Athletics database as AU18R and NU18R respectively. Two relay national records in a single season is an uncommon achievement at any level; doing it as a 16-year-old is exceptional.

Into 2026: Indoors and Looking Ahead

Vincent entered the 2026 season in strong form. In January 2026, she recorded an indoor 60m personal best of 7.68 seconds at a meet in Queensland. That mark is a solid benchmark for a 17-year-old sprinter and reflects the improvement in her acceleration mechanics and start execution. Her World Athletics profile, maintained through early 2026, shows her ranked #2269 in the world in the women’s 100m and #2387 in the 200m — rankings that will continue to improve as she begins to compete in higher-level open-age events.

With the 2026 Australian Athletics Junior Championships scheduled for Brisbane in April, Vincent — competing in the Under-18 age group — will have another opportunity to make her mark on the national stage, this time on home soil. The 2026 national junior championships are being held in Queensland, which for a Gold Coast-based sprinter who has spent her athletic career competing in and around that state, will carry an extra significance.

Context: Growing Up Alongside a Generation of Stars

One of the more interesting aspects of Vincent’s career so far is the company she keeps. Queensland has produced an extraordinary cohort of young sprinters in the 2007–2010 birth-year range, with Gout Gout — born in Ipswich, Queensland in December 2007 — already a global phenomenon at age 17 who has broken world under-20 records. Vincent is part of that same Queensland generation, training and competing in the same state ecosystem that has produced that kind of talent. She is not in Gout’s event or gender category, but the broader point stands: the Queensland sprinting development environment in the 2020s is producing athletes of remarkable quality, and Vincent is one of them.

Her school and club environment has also produced Alyssa McDonald, who has grown up competing alongside Vincent in virtually every format — school carnivals, APS competition, state championships, national championships, relay squads. The two have developed in parallel, pushing each other and forming the core of what has become one of the most effective relay combinations in Australian junior athletics.

Personal Bests

• 100 metres: 12.14 (November 4, 2023 — Queensland All Schools T&F Championships, QSAC, Brisbane)
• 200 metres: 25.09 (November 1, 2025)
• 60 metres (indoor): 7.68 (January 24, 2026)
• 4x100m relay: 44.70 (April 6, 2025 — Australian Athletics Championships, Perth) — Australian U18 Record, Australian U20 Record
• 4x200m relay: 1:36.99 (November 16, 2025 — QSAC, Brisbane) — Australian U18 Record, National U18 Record

Social Media

Charlee Vincent is active on Instagram at @charlee.vincent09.

Looking Ahead

At 17 years old as of 2026, Charlee Vincent is squarely in the early-development phase of what could be a substantial athletic career. Her relay record-breaking performances in 2025 demonstrated that she can perform under pressure at national championship level, and her individual times in the 100m and 200m — running 12.14 and 25.09 at 14 and 16 years old respectively — give a reasonable foundation for continued improvement as she physically matures and refines her technical model.

The Brisbane 2032 Olympic Games loom as a generational target for young Australian athletes, and Vincent — who will be 23 years old when those Games are held on home soil — fits squarely within the age profile of athletes who could realistically contend for selection. That is a long way off, and there is a great deal of athletic development still to come between now and then. But the trajectory is pointing in the right direction, the club environment is excellent, and the competitive fire is clearly there. For a Gold Coast sprinter who has been breaking records since she was a teenager, the runway ahead looks wide and fast.

Charlee Vincent is an Australian sprinter born February 6, 2009. She competes for Ignition Athletics Club in Queensland and attends King’s Christian College. She is a two-time Australian relay record-holder at the Under-18 level.