Nia Ali – getting better and better

Stuart Weir is writing this piece on Nia Ali, the 2016 World Indoor Champ, 2019 World Champ. Nia Ali won the 2023 USATF Champs and has been racing well. Nia Ali will race on Friday, July 21, 2023, at the EBS Herculis Diamond League. The event will be shown on Peacock TV at 1 PM. 

Nia Ali – getting better and better

I was walking back to my seat in the tribune from the media room in Lausanne last month, and there, sitting on the steps, was Nia Ali, having completed her race.  As always, she was friendly, and we chatted.  I said that I tended to associate her with Dawn Harper-Nelson, Brianna Rollins, Sharika Nelvis, Christina Clemons, etc., of whom only she was still running at the elite level.

It has been an illustrious and long career pausing to have two children along the way.  Now just a few months short of her 35^th birthday she is heading for another world championship as US champion.

Initially, she seemed to be better suited to the 60m distance winning the World Indoors in 2014 and 2016.  I was privileged to be there to see both races.  Does that make her an indoor specialist?  Even she is not sure!  “I don’t know.  It’s a tough thing for me to say.  If you look at my outdoor races, I tend to come from behind.  And my indoor times are not that fast.  Looking at my indoor PR, I think I can go a lot faster.  I’m a real fighter, and whatever it takes to win, I do it out there on the track. I just do what it takes.  I had done pretty well for myself indoors, so I guess you could say I’m an indoor specialist”.

Nia took her 2016 indoor form into the Rio Olympics.  At the Portland World Indoors, Nia was first, with Brianna McNeal second.  In Rio, the order was reversed, with Nia taking Olympic silver in 12.59.  She accepts that her Olympic result was a little unexpected: “Probably.  I think at that stage, I had probably only shown what I can do indoors.  I had previously made an outdoor US team but had not made it very far.  So I think it is fair for people to go of what they could see.  But no one sees what you do in training; they can only judge you from races, and I had an up-and-down year, so the judgment is fair.  But I think I’ve proven myself to be a championship performer”.