Saint Lucia’s Olympic 100m champion Julien Alfred made a big statement with her opening 200m of the season, running 21.88 (0.2m/s) at the Tom Jones Memorial in Gainesville, Florida, on Friday (18).
That performance is the second-fastest wind legal outdoor women’s 200m ever recorded this early in the year and is just 0.02 off Alfred’s own national record set in London last July.
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She won the race by almost half a second. Favour Ofili was runner-up in 22.34, Tamari Davis was third in 22.37 and Rhasidat Adeleke was fourth in 22.57.
After a couple of indoor races, including a 36.16 300m, Alfred opened her outdoor season with a 4x400m in Austin before running 36.05 for 300m in Miramar two weeks ago.
Last year the 23-year-old clocked 22.58 in her first outdoor 200m of the season. She went on to claim Olympic 200m silver as well as Olympic 100m gold in Paris and the race in Gainesville was her first 200m since that Olympic final in August.
In 2023, Alfred clocked 21.91 on her 200m season opener and she now owns two of the three fastest times ever recorded in April.
Zimbabwe’s Makanakaishe Charamba went quickest in the men’s 200m races, clocking 19.99 (-0.8m/s). Liberia’s Olympic finalist Joseph Fahnbulleh won another race in 20.07 (1.3m/s).
The action continued on Saturday (19), when USA’s Trey Cunningham and Grace Stark pipped the Olympic champions to clinch sprint hurdles wins.
Cunningham, the 2022 world silver medallist, was just 0.9 off his PB on his season opener. He clocked 13.09 (1.5m/s) to win the 110m hurdles by 0.9 ahead of Grant Holloway, also making his season debut and racing for the first time since securing his third consecutive world indoor 60m hurdles title in Nanjing. Dylan Beard was third in 13.33.
Olympic and world indoor finalist Stark had a successful season opener too as she won the 100m hurdles in 12.59 (-0.7m/s), finishing ahead of Masai Russell, who clocked 12.65. Christina Clemons was third in 12.82. Stark had earlier clocked 12.51 (0.2m/s) in the heats.
The early world lead was improved twice in the men’s 400m. First Jacory Patterson ran 44.27 to win a race in which Olympic 100m champion Noah Lyles, contesting his first 400m race as a professional, clocked 45.87. Two races later, 400m hurdles specialist Chris Robinson ran a big PB of 44.15 to win ahead of Matthew Boling (44.92).
Lyles had earlier anchored a relay quartet also featuring Christian Coleman, Pjai Austin and Erriyon Knighton to a 4x100m win in 37.90.
Aaliyah Butler ran the quickest women’s 400m of the day, improving her PB to 49.44, while Anavia Battle became the first woman to dip under 11 seconds in the 100m this year, running a PB of 10.98 (1.6m/s).
