Athletics Wollongong's James Turner ran a world record on his way to taking out the T36 100m in Dubai at the World Para Athletics Championships.  His time of 12.72s was enough to beat a hot field in what was the race of the day.

Midway through the run it looked like China's Yang Yifei had the field well in-hand but Turner put on the afterburners, scorched the final 30m and took the lead in the final strides.

"It feels amazing. It hasn't quite sunk in yet, as it was over so quickly," Turner said.

"I actually didn't know about the world record until the Canadians told me."

Immediately after the race Turner paid credit to his competitors: "All the other athletes didn't make it easy for me, that's for sure.  I had to work for every metre of that".

James Turner was returning to the big stage after his tremendous success at the London 2017 World Championships.  He was the triple world Champion, in the 200m, 400m and 800m.  In the intervening years he has elected to shift focus to the 100m and 400m, given that they will be on the Tokyo Paralympics program for his classification.

Still to come in Dubai: the T36 400m.  Round 1 will be on Thursday 1:09am (AEDT) with the final at 5:54pm.