Young races to a world lead, Gittens out-jumps Distin at dual meet in Texas
Young, who had mixed results running indoors, has been a lot more assured outdoors as a week after running a 48.98 relay split at the Texas Relays, the 21-year-old Texas A&M sophomore stormed to victory in 50.00, obliterating Williams’ meet record of 51.34 set last year. It also moved her closer to Athing Mu’s facility record of 49.68 also set last year.
It was also a significant improvement over her previous best of 50.85 set last year May.
A fast time was clearly on the cards when Young took control mid-race surging past Texas’ Kennedy Simon to take the lead. Williams, the Texas Junior, responded to Young’s move and stormed past her teammate to challenge Young for the lead.
However, the former Hydel High 800m star never looked likely to yield and pulled away to win in the world-leading time.
Williams broke her own meet record clocking 50.56, the second-fastest time in the world for 2022 while Simon was third in a personal-best 50.68.
Young moves up to number two all-time on the Texas A&M Aggies women’s 400m list and jumped to number five among the collegiate performers on the all-time chart.
Johnathan Jones won the men’s race in a conference-leading and meet record 45.07. The Barbadian quarter-miler broke his own meet record of 45.82 that was set last year.
Texas A&M’s Emmanuel Bamidele finished second in 45.25 with Jones’ teammate Willington Wright taking third in 45.64.
Meanwhile, in the Women’s 100m, St Lucia’s Julien Alfred ran a personal best of 11.07 to take the victory over teammates Kynnedy Flannel 11.34 and Kevona Davis 11.37. Alfred’s time was a new meet record eclipsing Flannel’s record of 11.23 set last year.
Alfred was third in the 200m in 23.10. The race was won by A&M’s Laila Owens in a personal best and conference-leading 22.57. However, she just managed to hold off Texas’ Rhasidat Adeleke, who was second in 22.59.
In one of the more epic clashes of the day, former Texas A&M multi-sport star Tyra Gittens, now a senior at Texas equalled her personal best of 1.95m to win the high jump over former teammate, the in-form Lamara Distin (1.93).
Distin, who defeated Gittens at last month’s NCAA Indoor Nationals, led when she cleared 1.91m but a fired-up Gittens cleared 1.93 at her first attempt, snatching the lead from her former teammate. Distin managed to clear 1.93 on her third attempt.
However, the Trinidadian Olympian cleared 1.95m, a new meet and facility record, to secure victory after Distin failed all three attempts at that height.
Marleen Guerrero was third with her best clearance of 1.80m.
Gittens enjoyed further success on the day as she soared out to 6.58 to be second on the long jump won by Deborah Acquah of A&M with a new personal best, conference-leading and meet record 6.89m.
Ackelia Smith jumped 6.46m for third.