On Friday night, Miller-Uibo won the 100m in a new personal best of 10.98 and the 200m in 21.98 – both world-leading times for 2020. The performances now mean she is ranked among the very best female combined sprinters in history.
Among the women, Miller-Uibo is ranked fourth with her new personal best of 10.98 in the 100m, good for 1204 points; 21.74 (1265) and 48.37 (1272). The weekend performances moved her into fourth all-time and bumped Jamaica’s Merlene Ottey out of the top 10 for the first time.
Ottey’s 10.74, 21.64 and 51.12 sees her fall to 11th on the all-time rankings.
The lists of combined sprinters are based on the World Athletics scoring tables and the most recent personal best times of the athletes. The lists use the World Athletics scoring tables, which assign a points value to athletics performances.
Among the men athletes like Usain Bolt, Michael Johnson, and Tyson Gay and the fast-rising Michael Norman, are among those who have run exceptional times at the 100m, 200m and 400m. For example, Bolt leads the list with times of 9.58 (1356 points), 19.19 (1351 points) and 45.28 (1160 points).
Despite falling out of the top 10, Ottey is still the highest-ranked Jamaican woman.
Grace Jackson (11.02, 21.72, 49.57) is ranked 14th while Veronica Campbell Brown (10.76, 21.74 and 52.24 (indoors) is ranked 16th. Sherone Simpson, Shericka Jackson and Kerron Stewart are ranked 21, 22, and 23, respectively.
Pauline Davis of the Bahamas is ranked 18th.
Hodge, the 17-year-old sprinting sensation from the British Virgin Islands (BVI) sped to a personal best 11.12 to win the 100m dash beating Germany’s Gina Luckenkemper, who finished second in 11.14. Celera Barnes was third in 11.16.
Hodge shaved 0.07 off her previous best of 11.18 that she ran at Florida State University on March 25 this year.
Clearly recovered from the rolled ankle that caused her to miss out on the 2023 Carifta Games in the Bahamas, Hodge would return later to win the 200m in a windy 22.76 (2.5m/s) ahead of Angie Annelus 23.20 and Rebekka Haase 23.24.
Richards, the Commonwealth Games 200m champion, in his first race in the event this season, won in an impressive opener of 20.40. Second overall in the race run in time-trial format was Jona Efoloko, who ran 20.56 while Hartmann Joshua was third overall in 20.62.
Hodge’s clubmate at Celerity Athletics 18-year-old Issamade Asinga raised eyebrows with a windy 10.83 (2.6m/s) to beat World 200m champion Noah Lyles (9.92) and Kendal Williams (9.98), who were second and third, respectively.
The 22-year-old quarter-miler ran a world-leading 45.07 to win ahead of Josephus Lyles, brother to 200m World Champion Noah Lyles, who was timed in 45.40. For Bloomfield, it was a solid follow up performance coming up after his 20.8 200m just over a week ago.
“ I feel satisfied with my 45.07 season opener. It is the fastest I have ever opened my season in the 400m,” said the former Auburn man, who suggested that he could have gone even faster.
“I could not execute the race in the manner I wanted to due to my hamstring cramping during the race but I just kept a steady pace and tried to finish strong so to see a time of 45.07 is a good enough result for me.”
Bloomfield, who has a personal best of 43.94, 0.01 outside Jamaica’s national record indicated that the run was a sign that training has been going according to plan, despite the pandemic lockdown
“Training has been going fairly well. We have been back on the track for about a month and we are just trying to make up for the time we lost during lockdown due to the coronavirus,” he said.
Bloomfield was not the only Jamaican winner at the meet last Friday night as World U20 silver medallist Britany Anderson racing against sisters Tiffany Porter and Cindy Ofili, ran 12.82 to take the 100m hurdles.
Porter was second in 12.92 while Ofili clocked 12.95 for third.
Both were world-leading times and made the Bahamian sprint queen the fastest in the world in the 100, 200, and 400m for 2020.
No one would be more pleased with her progress this season than her coach Lance Brauman, who continues to be dazzled by Miller-Uibo’s extraordinary talents.
“I was really happy about the performance in both the 100 and 200, but more impressed with how she and everyone else in the group have handled this crazy year,” he told Sportsmax.TV on Monday.
He was referring to the pandemic that forced the postponement of the Olympics until 2021 as well as the cancellation of most of the Wanda Diamond League season that restricted his cluster of world-class athletes at PURE Athletics to just a few small meets.
Miller-Uibo, who ran a huge personal best of 48.37 and still surprisingly lost the 400m at the 2019 World Championships in Doha last October, had an outstanding year nonetheless. Prior to the shock loss to Salwa Eid Nasser in Doha, she had run unbeaten in both the 200m and 400m for the last two years.
Brauman said the plan this year was to be even better.
“After last season the plan was to continue to build on the success of 2019, to continue to become a better athlete and to work on becoming a better overall sprinter. This has not been a wasted year,” he said.
Thompson-Herah’s time was the second-fastest in the world this season. Only the USA’s Sha’ Carri Richardson has run faster with her time of 10.72 at the Miramar South Florida Invitational last month.
It was a Jamaica 1-2-3 in the race as Natalliah Whyte clocked 11.08 for second place with Ashanti Moore third in 11.10.
The men’s 100m was won by Antigua’s Cejhae Greene who ran 10.02 to win ahead of Jamaica’s Yohan Blake who was given the same time. Incidentally, both men ran the same time, 9.98s, the preliminaries. The times were run with a trailing wind of 2.7m/s.
The wind in the final was 2.1m/s also over the allowable limit.
Devin Quinn was third in 10.03.
Nickel Ashmeade, making comeback after a couple of years out after undergoing groin surgery, was seventh in 10.11.
Meanwhile, the Women’s 200m race was won by Shawnti Jackson in 23.15s. Natasha Morrison, fresh off her personal best 10.87 in the 100m last weekend, was second in 23.21. Kristina Knott was third in 23.31.
Nathon Allen ran 46.85 for second in the 400m won by Michael Mathieu in 46.80. Musa Isah was third in 46.94.
In the women’s equivalent, Shericka Jackson was a comfortable winner in 52.01 over Kaylin Whitney 52.29. Tiffany James clocked 52.67 for third with Christine Day fourth in 53.57.
Janieve Russell won the 400m hurdles in 56.02.
Allen, 24, ran a personal best 20.45 over 200m at the Back to the Track Meet in Clermont, Florida on Saturday, eclipsing his previous best of 20.46 set in Luzern in July 2018.
The seventh-place finish did little to dampen the spirits of the former St. Jago High sprinter, who finished in the wake of 200m World Champion Noah Lyles, who won in 19.94 and 400m World Champion Stephen Gardiner who was a close second in 19.96.
“Given the circumstances around and the limited training I’m pleased,” Allen told Sportsmax.TV Tuesday, confessing that it feels good to be running fast once again.
“It’s a joy to be able to be competing with the best guys in my country and around the world and is therefore why I’m just trying to give my best each day in practice and follow my coach instructions.”
Allen won a pair of silver medals at the 2019 World Championships in Doha as a member of Jamaica’s mixed relay and 4x400m relay teams but it could have easily been different. Having turned up at the national championships to attempt to win an individual spot on the team, Allen suffered an injury on the eve of competition and was unable to compete.
So, it was a bit of a surprise to many when he was chosen to fly with the team to Doha where he duly rewarded the faith of the selectors.
The pandemic presented a new set of challenges in 2020 because while the nationwide lockdown in the United States prevented athletes from competing, it gave Allen a chance to continue healing and strengthen his body.
“At one point we were unable to train when things got really bad, then we started doing basic training on our own just trying to keep as fit as possible as we could in that time,” he said. “And we got ran off tracks a few times but otherwise coach tried his best to find someplace where we could at least do some drills for that day.”
It seems to have paid off because after opening up his outdoor season with a 46.50 over 400m in Marietta, Georgia on July 11, he returned to the track on Saturday and left with a new 200m PB.
The former St Jago High sprinter, who now competes for the CPTC-Tracksmith club, clocked 6.61s to take the top spot on the podium after leaving more celebrated sprinters in his wake.
Club-mate Jeremy Bascom was second in 6.67 while third-place was secured by Jaylon Baycon in 6.69s.
Jereem Richards, who now trains in Lance Brauman in Florida was fourth in 6.78s.
Former Jamaican sprinter, Jakali Harvey, who now competes for Turkey was fifth in 6.75.
The 25-year-old quarter-miler clocked 45.37 to win the 400m beating 2008 400m gold medalist LaShawn Merritt, who ran 45.45 for second place. Alonzo Russell of the Bahamas was third in 46.23.
Cedenio famously ran a personal best 44.01 to finish fourth at the 2016 Olympics in Rio, Brazil, and as a result, holds the record for the fastest time ever run for fourth-place.
It was the first time in Olympic history that the top three places came in under 44 seconds.
South Africa’s Wayde van Niekerk won in a world record 43.03 while Grenada’s Kirani James was second in 43.76. Merritt ran 43.85 for third.
Back in Clermont, Walters ran 13.53 to win the 110m hurdles over Johnathon Santiago Pagan, who ran 14.16. Israel Nelson was third in 14.33.
There was good news for Jamaica’s Jonielle Smith, who opened her season with a sixth-place finish in the 200m. Smith, a relay gold medalist at the 2019 World Championships in Doha, clocked 24.29 in the race won by the USA’s Candace Hill in 22.99.
Khamica Bingham was second in 23.57 while Candyce MgGrone finished third having run 23.67.
Kortnei Johnson won the 100m in 11.17 over Tiana Bartoletta (11.18) and Bingham (11.42).
Trinidad and Tobago sprinters Kelly-Ann Baptiste ran 11.51 for sixth and Khalifa St. Fort clocked 11.58 for seventh.
The time that was her fastest-ever wind-legal outdoor opener, eclipsed the previous best in the world this year of 22.17 set in Texas by Gabrielle Thomas on March 27 and would have sent shivers down the spines of potential 200m finalists at this summer’s Olympic Games in Tokyo.
The extraordinary Bahamian was also more than a half-second faster than second-placed Quanera Haynes, who clocked 22.68. Lynna Irby was third in 22.75.
The next fastest Caribbean athlete was Jamaica’s Natalliah Whyte who finished fourth in 23.28, a time slower than the 22.88 she ran in Miami on March 20.
In the men’s event, Trinidad and Tobago’s Jereem Richards, the 2019 Pan American Games silver medalist, lost out on a second-place finish by 0.001s to the USA’s Josephus Lyles. Both were given 20.37. However, Lyles was time given a time of 20.361 to Richards’ 20.362.
None of that mattered to Erriyon Knighton, who won the race in 20.31.
Trinidadian quarter-miler Machel Cedenio finished fifth in 20.84 while Antigua and Barbuda’s Cejhae Green was sixth in 20.86.
Meanwhile, Jamaica's Akeem Bloomfield, who opened with a 20.75s run in the 200m last month, ran 45.78 to finish second in the 400m won by Matthew Hudson-Smith in 45.51. Musa Isah was a distant third in 46.68.
In the 110-metre hurdles won by Nicholas Anderson in 13.49, Jamaica’s oft-injured Andrew Riley was second in 13.60 while Wellington ZaZa was third in 13.74.
The Bahamas' Devynne Charlton won the women's sprint hurdles in a wind-aided 13.08.
The 27-year-old Trinidad stormed to victory in 20.26s leaving Josephus Lyles (20.46) and Jamaica’s Christopher Taylor (20.73) in his wake.
It was his second win from three 200m starts this season following his victory at the Pure Athletics Spring Invitational in Clermont, Florida on April 4 and a second-place finish at the Tom Jones Memorial Invitational in Gainesville, Florida on April 16.
On each of those two occasions, he has run faster – 20.37 in Clermont and 20.30 in Gainesville - but his victory on the weekend was even more impressive considering the -1.3m/s wind he was running into.
“I’m very pleased with my performance last weekend. It gives me a lot of confidence going forward and I’m just trying to keep on building on my progress thus far,” he told Sportsmax. TV.
Richards moved from the University of Alabama under coach Blaine Wiley, who was his coach in 2017 when he won 200m bronze at the World Championships in London and then ran a 43-second relay leg as Trinidad and Tobago upset the USA to win the 4x400m gold medal.
He won the 200m Commonwealth Games title in 2018, silver at the Pan Am Games and then gold in the 4x400m relay at the World Relays in Japan in 2019.
However, moving from Alabama to Florida, he said, was down mainly to the impact of the pandemic.
“With the things that are happening in the world and not being able to train sufficiently with regards to COVID-19 and let’s say it gets back bad and we wouldn’t be able to use the facilities in the College (University of Alabama), I didn’t want to take chances and I decided to put myself in a position where, in the event that this happens, I’m somewhere that I will be able to train, somewhere where I have other professional athletes that might be going through the same struggles,” he told the Trinidad Guardian.
At Clermont, he rubs shoulders with the likes of World Champion Noah Lyles and his brother Josephus and several of the world’s elite sprinters. Training with them each day, he said, has allowed him to bring out his best.
“An improvement that I’ve seen since I moved is being around a lot of talented athletes from all around the world which motivates you to always be your best and push you beyond your limits,” he said.
In what was her first race since suffered a tight hamstring at the USATF Golden Games in Walnut, California on April 16, Williams advanced to the final after winning her preliminary round heat in a wind-assisted 10.96 (5.3m/s).
In the final, she locked strides with Tanisha Terry until late in the race when the American pulled away to win in 10.94.
Maia McCoy was the best of the rest, running 11.20 for third.
Williams, 20, races next in the 100m on June 12 at the USATF Grand Prix in New York before she travels to Jamaica for the National Senior Championships scheduled for June 23-26.
Former Hydel High star sprinter Ashanti Moore, meanwhile, ran out a comfortable winner in the 200m. The powerful sprinter, who now trains at Pure Athletics alongside some of the world’s best sprinters including the 2019 World 200m champion, Noah Lyles, clocked a nippy 23.02 easily defeating Lily Kaden (23.21) and Camile Laus (23.63).
Lyles was equally dominant in the men’s 200m which he won in 19.86 over Trinidad and Tobago’s Jereem Richards (20.06) and his brother Josephus Lyles, who ran 20.20, his fastest-ever season opener.
Kimberly Williams jumped a wind-assisted 13.93m to win the triple jump by one centimetre over Naomi Metzer (13.92m). Sineade Gutzmore jumped 13.22m for third.
