Amid the pulsating atmosphere of triumph, Brianna's immediate reaction spoke volumes about the significance of her achievement. "You know, everything clicked at the right time. I feel so full; I have nerves all over. I'm shaking. I don't know how to, like, embrace it or show it, but just know I'm happy," she shared, capturing the raw emotion of the moment.
Having overcome the adversity of missing the previous year, Lyston expressed the meaningful nature of her victory. "The pieces came together, you know, and that my hard work and practices paying off. It's just for me now to transition from indoor to outdoor, see if I could better my 100m times and my 200 times and help my team score some points," said Lyston, who became LSU’s first women’s indoor champion since Aleia Hobbs in 2018.
As questions turned to her consistent performance throughout the season, Brianna delved into the inner doubts that accompany every athlete. "Regardless of me coming out here running fast times, it still has me nervous for the next race. Like what am I going to do? Is everything going to push forward, am I going to go backward? You know, there are some questions there, but you just have to trust yourself in your program and your coach. You just have to talk with your coach."
The rising star's connection to the legacy of Jamaican women in sprinting was not lost on her. With a sense of pride, she declared, "It's all about pride. To be honest, I think pride pushes you to just carry the legacy of your country’s name or your school name or everything. I just want to be in the conversation. I just want to be one of them."
“These two weeks are going to be very important. I have a lot to work on,” she said. “I am going to use it to train and just get consistent and I am coming for the NCAA record.”
She wasn’t kidding.
On today’s first day of the NCAA National Indoor Championships in Arkansas, Gittens smashed the collegiate, facility and meet records held by Kendell Williams to crown herself NCAA national champion.
On March 11, 2016, Williams of the University of Georgia set the collegiate and meet records of 4703 points. She also held the facility record of 4678 points set on March 14, 2015. These are no more as the 22-year-old Trinidadian scored a personal best 4746 points to take gold and exact revenge on Georgia’s Anna Hall, who won the SEC title a fortnight ago.
Hall secured the silver with 4401 points while Erin Marsh of Duke scored 4344 points for third.
Gittens, who had set a personal best 4612 points on January 29, started out well-running 8.27s for the 60m hurdles, the second-best time overall behind Marsh’s 8.13s.
The time, though, earned Gittens 1068 points. She would then earn another 1145 points in the long jump after clearing a personal best and school record 1.93m.
Her worst score of the day came in the shot put when a mark of 13.86m earned her 785 points.
By then she had established a lead of 277 points over Hall going into the final two events. At the SEC’s, trouble with the long jump run up saw her struggle, only managing a mark of 4.11m. She had no such trouble today leaping to 6.58m, just four centimetres shy of her personal best of 6.62m.
With only the 800m to come, Gittens needed 673 points to break the collegiate record. Her time of 2:28.22 was the 15th best time of the competitors but it earned 715 points that took her past the previous records.
Gittens, who on Thursday, broke Kendall Williams’ five-year-old pentathlon record, cleared 1.90m to win the high jump, becoming the first woman to sweep the pentathlon and the high jump.
The mark was shy of her personal best 1.93m set the day before during the pentathlon, but it was more than enough to hold off South Carolina freshman Rachel Glenn and Georgia’s Anna Hall, who cleared 1.87m second and third, respectively, the latter losing out on the silver medal on the countback.
Two hours later, Gittens, the SEC Female Field Athlete of the Year, went on the hunt for another gold in the long jump but despite uncorking a personal best 6.68m, a new school record, she had to settle for the bronze medal.
Why? Well, Tara Davis of the University of Texas shattered the record of 6.91m that had been held by Jamaica’s Elva Goulbourne since 2002 when she launched out to 6.93m. It was at the championships since Auburn’s Whitney Gipson equalled Golbourne’s mark in 2015.
In addition to being the championship record, the 6.93m was also a meet record and a facility record for Davis.
The silver medal went to Florida’s Claire Bryant who produced her personal best 6.70m.
The bronze medal means that Gittens has earned 26 points for Texas A&M at the nationals, the third-most all-time at an NCAA meet.
