St. Vincent’s Shafiqua Maloney and Jamaica’s Ackera Nugent and Phillip Lemonious all secured wins at Friday’s Arkansas Twilight in Fayetteville.
Maloney, unbeaten so far this season in the 800m both indoors and outdoors, showed her class on Friday in the one lap event, speeding to a new personal best and national record 50.75 to take top spot.
Her time was also an Arkansas Twilight record, bettering Britton Wilson’s 50.97 set in 2022.
American Kendall Baisden was way behind in second in 52.91 while Sudan’s Hiba Saeed was third in 53.45.
2023 NCAA Indoor and Outdoor champion and world championship finalist in the sprint hurdles, Ackera Nugent, tried her hand successfully at the 200m on Friday. She ran a season’s best 23.12 to win ahead of 400m podium finishers Hiba Saeed (23.49) and Kendall Baisden (23.58).
Phillip Lemonious, who also took sprint hurdles gold at the NCAA Championships last year, ran a season’s best 13.52 to win the event on Friday ahead of Arkansas’s Elijah Morris (13.70) and Brevin Sims (13.73).