Abigail Schaaffe wins Big-10 600m in new personal best, eyes 400m hurdles outdoors
In January, Schaaffe ran 1:30.99 to win at the Larry Wieczorek Invitational at the University of Iowa. The time was a top-six all-time performance for UM.
She declared then that she was targeting a time below 1:30 at the Big 10 championships but not even she could have predicted how far below she would have gone.
After posting a time of 1:30.05 in the preliminaries on Thursday, the second-fastest time of the round behind the 1:29.21 set by her teammate Val Larson, Schaaffe floored it in the finals on Saturday to win in 1:27.96.
“I was amazed that I went in with the second-fastest time from the prelims and have pulled off such a big personal best, which makes me fourth in my school history,” she told Sportsmax.TV.
“I had no idea I would ever run that fast. I was looking at a 1:28-low but my coach back home predicted that I was going to run that time so he was not surprised, I guess.”
Larson finished second in 1:28.67 with Claire Pitcher of Iowa in 1:29.96.
She would team up with Jayla Campbell, Janielle Josephs and Larson to win the 4x400m relay in 3:35.51. Iowa copped silver in 3:37.92 while Purdue was third in 3:39.51.
Schaaffe ran the anchor in 52.5, her fastest ever relay split.
“It was great. I didn’t even know that I ran that fast because it was like an hour after the 600,” she said.
At the NCAA National Championships, Schaaffe will only run the 4x400 relay and is looking forward to an event switch when she goes outdoors later this year.
“I have always been interested in the 400m hurdles because that is one of my events, too, but I would take on the 400m any day,” she said. “But I’m thinking the 400mh outdoors that is what I really want to do.”
Earlier, Rikkoi Brathwaite of the British Virgin Islands won the 60m dash in 6.55. Waseem Williams of Purdue was second in 6.66, the same time as his teammate Marcellus Moore.