Newly-enrolled property student Kurt Mulcahy could be forgiven for overlooking his textbooks after the excitment of beating former 100m world record-holder Asafa Powell over 400m at the weekend.

Kurt has been tipped as a rising talent after claiming third spot in a quality field at the Sydney Classic athletics meet.

Kurt Mulcahy - serving notice of his talent

Commonwealth Games gold medallist John Steffensen and Olympic relay silver medallist Clinton Hill were among the stars left in his wake. Only Olympic semi-finalist Sean Wroe and American college star Xavier Cater were able to beat Kurt home.

The external CQUniversity student trains at the Australian Institute of Sport* under Tudor Bidder and hopes record a time below 45.55sec to qualify for this year's World Championships as an individual runner.

His time at the Sydney Classic was 45.84sec.

* Since 2006, CQUniversity has been a member of the Elite Athlete Friendly University (EAFU) Network established by the Australian Sports Commission. The network aims to identify and promote universities who have responded to the specific needs of elite student athletes by developing new (or promoting existing) policies and practices which assist elite student athletes to undertake sporting opportunities while pursuing and achieving academic excellence.