LONDON, ENGLAND, July 19 — Twelve months ago, Julien Alfred had to settle for 2nd in London, beaten by Gabby Thomas in a thrilling 200 despite setting a 21.86 NR.
This year, with no Thomas on the start line and with cool rain having fallen earlier, Olympic 100 gold medalist Alfred had the stage to herself and stopped the clock in 21.71 to leap into the top 10 all-time list for the furlong.
With rivals shoulder-to-shoulder with the St. Lucian coming off the bend, Alfred went through the gears down the straight and left ’19 world champion Dina Asher-Smith trailing in her wake by more than half a second. The Briton finished 2nd in 22.25.
“I did the 200 here last year before the Olympics and finished 2nd, but seeing how I ran today and how comfortable I felt, I am a lot more confident in my 200 heading into the Worlds,” said Alfred, who even cracked a rare smile after crossing the line.
Even more remarkably, conditions were far from perfect — not just on the chilly side but with a slight 0.6 breeze facing the athletes on a track that was still drying out after thunderstorms.
The women’s mile isn’t run as frequently at big invitationals as it is for the men but, prompted by Faith Kipyegon’s recent sub-4 piece of theater in Paris, London meet organizers decided to stage the event and were rewarded with a plethora of revisions to the all-time list.
The target was 4:10, tacitly acknowledging that Kipyegon’s ratified World Record of 4:07.64 was probably beyond the reach of the assembled ensemble.
Gudaf Tsegay though seemed not to have read the script as she almost immediately eschewed the help of the designated pacemaker and shot to the front after just 150m.
The Ethiopian ticked off 400 splits of 59.93 and 2:03.45 — inside WR pace — before starting to tire slightly on the third lap. She passed 1200 in 3:07.98 before eventually crossing the line in 4:11.88 to move up to No. 2 on the all-time list after Kipyegon.
Behind Tsegay there was a host of NRs with Australia’s Jessica Hull finishing 2nd in 4:13.68 and Sinclaire Johnson taking 0.03 off Nikki Hiltz’s 2-year-old American Record when finishing 4th in 4:16.32.
“I came here thinking the record was possible and that’s what we were aiming at. We expected Tsegay would go out hard, so I just had to…
CLICK HERE to Read the Full Original Article at Track & Field News…