A double double for Bednarek
Sprinter wins 100, 200 in Grand Slam Track meet for second consecutive time
Kenny Bednarek got what he came for in the Grand Slam Track meet in Miramar, Florida, on Sunday.
A day after winning the men’s 100 meters in a wind-aided 9.79 seconds on Saturday, the U.S. performer won the 200 by a large margin when he clocked 19.84 to finish nearly three tenths of a second ahead of second-place Zharnel Hughes of Great Britain and third-place Oblique Seville of Jamaica, who were each credited with times of 20.13.
Bednarek’s performance gave him four victories in four races during the first two Grand Slam Track meets of the season and it also helped him win the men’s short sprints event category for the second time.
While winning that overall title was worth $100,000 in prize money and no doubt important to the 26-year-old Bednarek, he had made it known prior to the race on Sunday that he wanted to better the yearly world-leading marks of 19.86 that Jereem Richards of Trinidad and Tobago and Alexander Ogando of the Dominican Republic had run in finishing 1-2 in the long sprints category race on Friday.
Bednarek, the silver medalist in the 200 in the last two Olympic Games, had a solid lead over Hughes and Seville coming off the turn on Sunday and he expanded it substantially in the home straightaway while displaying no signs of strain on his face or in his sprinting form.
Behind the first three finishers, 2021 Olympic champion Andre De Grasse of Canada placed fourth in 20.23 and Brandon Hicklin of the U.S. was fifth in 20.40.
“I just know I’m right where I need to be,” Bednarek said in a post-race interview with Grand Slam Track’s Taliya Brooks. “I mean, it’s a long season, but you know, getting 19.8 and a 9.7 windy, there’s good times for the end of the year.”
Because the World Athletics Championships are not scheduled to be held in Tokyo until Sept. 13-21, some have criticized Grand Slam Track for starting its season too early. Many of those critics have contended that holding the inaugural meet in Kingston, Jamaica, from April 4-6 was too soon, and that holding a total of four meets that are four weeks apart from one another can be disruptive to a lot of performers’ training schedules. That instead of letting the athletes put together big training blocks with perhaps just a couple of races sprinkled in, they are being required to run two races at regular four-week intervals.
Despite those concerns, standout performers such as Bednarek and 400-meter hurdlers Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone of the U.S. and Alison dos Santos of Brazil seem excited about a format that has seen them win all four of their races and a cool $200,00 in prize money in the first two meets of the inaugural Grand Slam season.
McLaughlin-Levrone, the two-time Olympic champion in the women’s 400 hurdles, ran a season best of 49.69 in the 400 on Sunday after clocking a yearly world-leading time of 52.07 in the hurdles on Friday.
Each of those victories was worth 12 points in Grand Slam Track’s scoring system as McLaughlin-Levrone totaled a perfect 24 points in the overall standings for the women’s long hurdles event category for the second meet in a row.
McLaughlin-Levrone’s victory in the 400 was similar to her win in the 400 hurdles in a couple of ways.
The first was that her margin of victory was roughly two seconds and the second was that most of her advantage came during the final 150 meters of the race when the woman who has set six world records in the 400 hurdles is incredibly dominant.
She had a lead of nine hundredths of a second over Shamier Little of the U.S. when she went through the first 200 meters of the 400 in 24.28 seconds. But her advantage was eight-tenths of a second over second-place Anna Hall at 300 meters and it had grown to nearly two seconds when she crossed the finish line in 49.69.
Hall, the silver medalist in the heptathlon in the 2023 World championships, finished second in 51.68, with Andrenette Knight of Jamaica placing third in 51.80 and Little taking fourth in 51.84.
While McLaughlin-Levrone said she was pleased with her performances at the Ansin Sports Complex in Miramar, it sounded as though she could be running in the short hurdles category, which entails the 100 hurdles and the 100, when the next Grand Slam Track meet is held at Franklin Field in Philadelphia from May 30-June 1.
“I think we might go to the short hurdles,” she said in a post-meet interview with Grand Slam Track’s John Anderson, Sanya Richards-Ross, and Chris Chavez. “Switch it up. Yeah, test myself. Work on some hurdle technique. Work on some sprint.”
Dos Santos, the 2022 World champion in the men’s 400 intermediate hurdles and a two-time Olympic bronze medalist in the event, set a personal best of 44.53 in winning the 400 ahead of second-place Christopher Robinson of the U.S. on Sunday after finishing first in the intermediate hurdles in 47.97 on Friday.
As in the intermediate hurdles race, Caleb Dean of the U.S. was dos Santos’ closest competition during the first half of the 400 as his 21.37 split was not far back of the Brazilian’s 21.28. But Dean had begun to drop back as the race entered the home straightaway and the battle for first was between dos Santos in first place and Robinson in second.
Dos Santos had overtaken Robinson in the final 10 meters of the 400 in Kingston and the latter had then slashed a large chunk off his personal best of 45.54 when he ran a yearly world-leading time of 44.15 in the Tom Jones Memorial Invitational in Gainesville, Florida, on April 19.
However, Robinson was unable to get out ahead of dos Santos in Sunday’s race and the tall Brazilian pulled away from Robinson in the homestretch as his winning time of 44.53 left him well clear of Robinson’s 44.86 clocking in second place.
Dean finished third in a personal best of 45.18, followed by compatriot Trevor Bassitt in 45.31.
The deepest race of the day, as well as the meet, came in the women’s 3,000 meters when Hirut Meshesha of Ethiopia placed first in 8:22.72 in a contest in which the top four finishers recorded the four fastest outdoor times of the year.
As she had done in the 5,000 on Friday, Agnes Ngetich of Kenya pushed the pace from the start as she clocked 2:44.49 at 1,000 meters and 5:35.44 at 2,000.
Ngetich was still in the lead when she began the bell lap. But Ethiopian Tsige Gebreselama briefly took the lead down the backstretch before compatriot Meshesha was in the lead entering the final turn ahead of Ngetich, Ethiopian Medina Eisa, and Gebreselama.
Eisa had moved into second place ahead of Ngetich with 100 meters to go, but she was unable to overtake Meshesha, whose 8:22.72 clocking bettered her previous personal best of 8:28.46 set last year.
Eisa and Ngetich also set personal bests while finishing second and third in times of 8:23.08 and 8:23.14, while Gebreselama’s fourth-place time of 8:24.47 just missed her career best of 8:24.40.
Ngetich and Eisa finished first and second in the overall standings in the long distance event category as the Kenyan had edged the Ethiopian in the 5,000 on Friday when she had run a yearly world-leading time of 14:25.80.
In the four other events contested on Sunday, Grant Fisher of the U.S. won the men’s 3,000, Mary Moraa of Kenya placed first in the women’s 800, Marileidy Paulino of the Dominican Republic won the 200 that was part of the women’s long sprint category, and Trey Cunningham of the U.S. was victorious in the 100 that was part of the men’s short hurdles division.
Fisher, the world indoor record-holder in the 3,000 and 5,000, had been nipped for first place by Andrew Coscoran of Ireland in an incredibly slow 3,000 on Friday. And though American Cooper Teare led the field through a dwandling 3:01.15 split for the first 1,000 meters on Sunday, the pace racheted up during the next 2,000 meters as George Mills of Great Britain was in first place when he passed 2,000 meters in 5:51.72 and 3,000 in 8:36.38.
Fisher was running comfortably in fourth place at that point, but he had moved into second place a lap later and he was in first place 100 meters after that. He was three-plus seconds up on second-place Mills when he came through 4,000 meters in 11:11.07 and he then ran his final kilometer in 2:29.25 while clocking 13:40.32.
Teare finished second in 13:46.25, followed by Coscoran in 13:46.30, and Olympic silver medalist Ronald Kwemoi of Kenya in 13:46.35.
Fisher ran the final two kilometers of the race in 5:03.52 and the last 1,600 in an impressive 3:57.57.
“I wanted to turn this into a strength race, which is my specialty,” Fisher said.
He then added that “I got nipped by [Coscoran] at the line two days ago. And.. it was a really good battle. And I need to be able to win in a lot of different scenarios, so I really wanted to win that way. But today I turned it into my race and got it done.”
Moraa, the 2024 World champion in the 800, was favored to win that race and she led the field through 200 meters in 29.22, 400 in 60.48, and 600 in 1:31.44 before finishing first in 1:59.51.
The race for second behind her was very tight as Nikki Hiltz of the U.S. placed second in 1:59.75, followed by the Ethiopian duo of Freweyni Hailu and Diribe Welteji, who placed third and fourth with times of 1:59.84 and 1:59.94.
Hailu’s third-place finish helped her win the short distance title ahead of Hiltz as she had held off the American for the victory in the 1,500 on Saturday.
Paulino, the defending Olympic and World champion in the 400, won the women’s long sprints title with a maximum score of 24 points as she won the 200 in a national record of 22.30 on Sunday after winning the 400 in 49.21 on Friday.
Paulino had overtaken Olympic silver medalist Sawa Eid Naser of Bahrain in the final 50 meters of the 400. But she was ahead of everyone after the opening curve in the 200 and she proceeded to turn a small lead over Nickisha Pryce of Jamaica and Eid Naser into a comfortable margin of victory as her 22.30 clocking left well in front of Eid Nasser in 22.53, Isabella Whittaker of the U.S. in 22.76, and Pryce in 22.77.
Cunningham had a very productive weekend as the former NCAA champion in the men’s 110-meter high hurdles for Florida State won that event on Saturday before taking the 100 in 10.17 seconds on Sunday to clinch the overall title in the short hurdles category.
Cunningham and U.S. compatriot Jamal Britt battled for the lead for most of the race before the silver medalist in the high hurdles in the 2022 World championships edged ahead of Britt to record a 10.17 to 10.20 victory.
Sasha Zhoya of France finished third in 10.36, followed by Olympic high hurdles silver medalist Daniel Roberts of the U.S. in 10.40.
Cunningham had not run a 100-meter race since the 2019 season and his 10.17 clocking obliterated his personal best of 10.64 that he had set that year. It also came a day after he had tied his personal best of 13.00 in the high hurdles.
As mentioned previously, the next Grand Slam Track meet will held be at Franklin Field in Philadelphia from May 30–June 1, followed by the season finale at UCLA’s Drake Stadium from June 28-30.