Below is an excerpt from the Fast Women newsletter, posted with permission. Fast Women produces a high-quality, weekly newsletter, focused on women’s track & field, with an emphasis on distance running and women’s voices.
Click here to subscribe to the complete weekly newsletter
From the Fast Women Newsletter
This year’s Texas Relays attracted star-studded fields in the sprints. Half of the Olympic gold medal winning 4x400m relay reunited as Shamier Little, Raevyn Rogers, Dalilah Muhammad, and Athing Mu combined to win the invitational 4x400m in 3:24.60. Muhammad split 51.65 and Mu split 50.26. The thing about pros showing up to college meets, though, is that collegians start racing earlier in the year, and they peak earlier (plus they’re also just really good), so many of the fastest times at this meet came from the collegians. Texas had the fastest 4×4 of the day (3:22.94) and Texas A&M’s Charokee Young had the fastest recorded split (48.98 on the third leg).
Double Olympic medalist Gabby Thomas won the 100m/200m double, running 10.92 (2.9 m/s wind) and 21.69 (3.1 m/s wind). Reminder for this distance-heavy audience—any performance with a wind reading over 2.0 m/s is considered to be wind-aided. First-year pro Tamara Clark who, like Thomas, is part of the Buford Bailey Track Club, gave her teammate a great race in both events, finishing a close second in 10.94 and 21.72. The fastest 100m times of the day came from USC’s Celera Barnes (10.82, 2.8 m/s wind) and Arkansas’ Jada Baylark, who finished right behind in 10.83.
Big winds can be more tricky in the hurdles, because hurdlers need to get their stride patterns just right. World record holder Keni Harrison opened her outdoor season with a 12.32 in the invitational heat 100m hurdles, with a 3.9 m/s wind behind her. And right before that, LSU’s Alia Armstrong produced a similarly impressive performance in the collegiate race, running 12.33 with a 2.5 m/s wind.
Arkansas’ Britton Wilson won the 400m hurdles in a world-leading 54.37 (yes, it’s still early), which puts her 10th on the all-time collegiate list. Shamier Little won the invitational race in 56.77. Anna Hall won the heptathlon with a huge personal best of 6,412 points, which puts her No. 12 on the U.S. all-time list. Hall finished off the competition with a 2:04.61 800m, and she would have given open 800m winner Shafiqua Maloney, who ran 2:04.59, a good race. Texas A&M’s Lamara Distin set a Jamaican record of 6-5/1.96m in winning the high jump. (Results)
