Brown closes season with a rush
Olympic bronze medalist wins 200 in Athlos NYC meet after second-place finish in 100
Brittany Brown capped the best season of her career with a come-from-behind victory over Olympic champion — and fellow American — Gabby Thomas in the 200 meters to conclude the inaugural Athlos NYC meet at Icahn Stadium on Randall’s Island on Thursday night.
The unique women’s-only meet, which consisted of six-runner fields in the 100 meters, 100 hurdles, 200, 400, 800, and 1,500, was the brain-child of Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian and included a prize money structure in which the winner of each race was awarded $60,000, with the runner-up getting $25,000, followed by a breakdown of $10,000, $8,000, $5,000, and $2,500, respectively, for the third- through sixth-place finishers.
Brown’s win in the 200 followed her second-place finish in the 100 about 80 minutes earlier and gave her an $85,000 payout — before taxes — for a little more than 33 seconds of sprinting.
“The first inaugural event for all women, I’m just really appreciative of everyone supporting us women," Brown said on the broadcast as she stood on the awards stage after her victory. “I’m just happy to be a part of this.”
Competing before an appreciative crowd in a festive atmosphere that included music provided by a DJ between events, Brown trailed Thomas and compatriot Anavia Battle coming off the turn in the 200. But she began to make up ground on both of them with about 75 meters left in the race as Thomas and Battle were focused on finishing in front of the other.
Brown caught Battle with about 25 meters to go and then overtook Thomas in the final 10 meters of the race to record a time of 22.18 seconds to Thomas’s 22.21 and Battle’s 22.34.
Thomas, who is known for having a strong homestretch finish, had run 21.81 to Brown’s personal best of 21.90 in winning the U.S. Olympic Team Trials in Eugene, Oregon, in June. She then clocked 21.83 in winning the Olympic Games in Paris in August in a race in which Brown ran 22.20 to win the bronze medal.
While Thomas had followed her individual title by running the third legs on U.S. teams that won gold medals in the 4 x 100 relay and the 4 x 400 relay in Paris, Brown won the 200 in an eased-up 22.00 in the Golden Gala Pietro Mennea Diamond League meet in Rome on August 30 before clocking 51.48 to finish second in a 400 in a competition in Brescia, Italy, on Sept. 8. She then won the 200 in 22.20 in the Diamond League Final at the Memorial van Damme meet in Brussels six days later.
The 29-year-old sprinter, who had finished seventh in the 100 in last year’s World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary, ran even with Marie-Josee Ta Lou-Smith of Cote d’Ivoire for the first 75 meters of the 100 on Thursday before Ta Lou-Smith pulled away from her to record a 10.98 to 11.05 victory.
Candace Hill of the U.S. placed third in 11.14, while Olympic fourth-place finisher Daryll Nieta of Great Britain was fourth in 11.29 after getting off to a dismal start and never recovering.
“I feel like this sport is really changing and growing,” Brown said during her post-victory interview. “I’m excited to be a part of it. This is a whole new event. We tried something new. I’m happy to be a part of trying. I feel like so many people just sit and talk about, OK, let’s do this, let’s do this. But no one’s doing it. So I’m happy to be a part of people doing the work.”
In the other events on Thursday, Olympic champions Marileidy Paulino of the Dominican Republic and Faith Kipyegon of Kenya capped unbeaten seasons in their specialties with wins in the 400 and 1,500 meters, respectively, while Olympic bronze medalist Jasmine Camacho-Quinn of Puerto Rico took the 100 hurdles and Olympic silver medalist Tsige Duguma of Ethiopia placed first in the 800.
The 27-year-old Paulino, who had set an Olympic and national record of 48.17 seconds in the 400 in Paris, typically wins races by moving away from her competitors during the final 150 meters. But she shared the lead with Alexis Holmes of the U.S. at the midway mark on Thursday before entering the home straightaway with a sizeable lead.
Olympic silver medalist Salwa Eid Naser of Bahrain briefly overtook Holmes for second place with about 40 meters left in the race before falling behind the American.
Paulino crossed the finish line in 49.59, followed by Olympic sixth-place finisher Holmes in 49.99 and Naser in 50.40.
The 1,500 appeared to be the most talent-laden field in the meet, but the race was slow from the start as pacesetter Emily Richards of the U.S. had a seven-meter lead over Kipyegon and company when she came through 400 meters in 67.7 seconds and there was still a sizeable gap between her and the field with two laps left.
After Richards dropped out, the 30-year-old Kipyegon was at the front of a tightly bunched pack of six runners when she came through the 800- and 1,200-meter marks. The three-time Olympic champion began to increase the tempo while heading down the backstretch for the last time and she entered the home straightaway with a two-stride lead over second-place Diribe Welteji of Ethiopia before expanding her advantage all the way to the finish line.
Although Kipyegon’s time of 4:04.79 was more than 15 seconds off the world record of 3:49.04 that she had set in the Meeting de Paris Diamond League meet on July 7, she has won 16 consecutive finals in the 1,500 meters or mile on the track since finishing second in the 1,500 in the Golden Gala Pietro Mennea meet in June of 2021.
Welteji finished second in 4:05.58, with Olympic sixth-place finisher Susan Ejore-Sanders of Kenya third in 4:06.25. Gudaf Tsegay of Ethiopia, who had lowered her personal best to 3:50.30 in winning the Diamond League opener in Xiamen, China, in April, continued her late-season struggles and finished fourth in 4:06.81.
Camacho-Quinn, the 2021 Olympic champion in the 100 hurdles, appeared to flinch after the field had been called to the set position on Thursday. But after steadying herself, she came out of the blocks well and had a clear lead after the fifth of 10 barriers.
She was not seriously challenged after that and crossed the finish line in 12.36 seconds, followed by the American duo of Alaysha Johnson in 12.43 and Olympic champion Masai Russell in 12.44.
Russell, whose only victories this season came in the U.S. Olympic Trials and the Olympic Games, got off to a slow start and was in no better than fifth place halfway through the race.
Camacho-Quinn’s win was her sixth in a row after the 28-year-old had finished third behind Russell and Cyrena Samba-Mayela of France in Paris and it gave her nine victories in her last 10 finals and 13 wins in 17 races this season.
It also marked the sixth time in her last eight races that she had run 12.35, 12.36 or 12.38.
The 800 pitted Duguma against Olympic bronze medalist Mary Moraa of Kenya, but the Ethiopian had taken the lead after the first 200 meters of the race and no one was able to pass her after that.
Duguma was closely followed by 2023 World champion Moraa, Natoya Goule-Toppin of Jamaica, Addy Wiley of the U.S., and 2019 World champion Halimah Nakaayi of Uganda when she came through 400 meters in 58.13, and the order remained the same with 200 meters left.
The race for first place was down to Duguma and second-place Moraa entering the home straightaway, but the 23-year-old Ethiopian pulled away from the Kenyan during the final 50 meters of the contest.
Duguma’s time of 1:57.43 was the second-fastest of her career and Moraa finished in 1:58.05 after having won the Diamond League Final in a season best of 1:56.56.
Goule-Toppin finished third in 1:58.63, followed by Wiley in 1:58.93.
Although Ohanian had not committed to holding a second edition of the women’s-only meet as recently as Wednesday, an msn.com post quoted him saying on Thursday that “we’re absolutely doing this again next year.”
He then added that the “bare minimum is that this is one of the most exciting sporting events in New York sports. I wanted to capture, like, the U.S. Open night match energy. I wanted to capture if we can get a little bit of the New York Knicks or Liberty playoff match energy. And maybe throw in a little bit of music festival energy.”
With that music festival experience in mind, Grammy Award winner Megan Thee Stallion performed after the conclusion of the meet.