Hydel’s Lyston achieved personal bests this season of 11.14 in the 100m to win at the Central Championships on March 15 and 22.53 to win the 200m at the ISSA Boys and Girls Championships on April 9.
That 22.53 effort broke Simone Facey's class one record of 22.71 set back in 2004.
She also ran 23.16 to win gold at the 49th Carifta Games at the National Stadium in Kingston on April 18.
Lyston will hope to join the likes of Trinidadian 2011 World Championships 100m bronze medallist Kelly-Ann Baptiste, Jamaican Olympic and World Championship 800m finalist Natoya Goule, Jamaican 400m hurdler Nickiesha Wilson and others as Caribbean NCAA champions representing LSU.
Rising American sprinter Sha'Carri Richardson also attended LSU where she set a NCAA record of 10.75 while winning the National Division I title in 2019.
The 22-year-old St Fort has spent most of her career so far being conditioned by former T&T top sprinter Ato Boldon, who also operates out of Florida. St Fort trained alongside young Jamaican rising star Briana Williams.
The young sprinter had a stellar start to her competitive career after claiming a silver medal at the 2015 World Youth Championships in Athletics, behind America's Candace Hill. She went on to claim 100m gold at the 2015 Pan American Junior Athletics Championship. St Fort was chosen for the 2015 World Championships in Athletics as a relay alternate for the 4×100 metres relay, where the team broke the Trinidad and Tobago national record.
Things, however, tailed off a bit for the young runner and her and Boldon parted ways last year. Baptiste, however, believes the young sprinter is slowly getting back to her best.
"Khalifa is somebody that I have admired in terms of her work ethic, her dedication to always want to be well. In some ways, Khalifa reminds me of myself and I just think that she, with the right environment and the right training, she can be a world-beater,” Baptiste said in a recent interview with T&T radio station i95.5fm.
“I'm excited for her and I'm looking to see what next year holds. She's been doing very well and you know it's a bunch of 'Trinis' here which just makes things easier for her.”
