"To be here is a miracle" – Devers donates Budapest 2004 singlet and spikes to MOWA
When Gail Devers settled into her starting blocks for the women’s 60m final on the opening night of the 2004 World Indoor Championships in the Budapest Sportarena, the consensus among the track and field cognoscenti was that her best days were probably behind her.
True, the great US sprint hurdler-turned-sprinter had produced a golden blast from the past on “the boards” 12 months previously, blasting to her first world indoor 60m hurdles crown ahead of Spain's Glory Alozie in 7.81, having clocked a championship record 7.80 in the semifinals.
Still, one year on, Devers had turned 37, and it had been seven years since her last success on the global stage in a flat sprint, indoors or out. The odds, it seemed, were stacked against the preacher’s daughter from Seattle.
But, then, Yolanda Gail Devers always did relish a battle. The veteran campaigner produced her fastest time for five years, finishing 0.04 clear of Belgian Kim Gevaert in 7.08.
In doing so, Devers became the first woman to complete a hat-trick of world indoor 60m titles, emulating her victories from Toronto in 1993 (in 6.95, still a championship record) and Paris in 1997. She might have completed a famous double in Budapest but in the final of the 60m hurdles two days later she was beaten to the gold by Perdita Felicien of Canada, 7.75 to 7.78.
Devers has generously donated the spikes and the singlet which she wore during Budapest 2004 to the Museum of World Athletics (MOWA).
Dogged by Olympic hurdling ill fortune
The world didn’t know it at the time but those 2004 World Indoor Championships were to be a final medal-winning hurrah for the odds-defying Devers. Though she made the US team for that year’s Olympic Games in Athens, the ill-fortune that dogged her in her specialist event in every four-year Olympic cycle struck once again. She suffered a calf injury and failed to clear the opening barrier in the 100m hurdles heat.
The irony was that, in between Olympics, Devers had a Midas touch when it came to the high hurdles in the outdoor World Championships. As with the indoor 60m, outdoors she took 100m gold on three occasions: in Stuttgart in 1993, in Gothenburg in 1995 and in Seville in 1999. They remain unique trebles.
There were also outdoor silvers in Tokyo in 1991, and in Edmonton 10 years later – the former, a prelude to the remarkable success story that was to unfold in the atmospheric Montjuic Stadium, high on the hill overlooking Barcelona, at the 1992 Olympic Games.
Devers’ victory in a dramatic 100m final came against all kinds of odds. At the time a 25-year-old sociology student at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, she was ranked only fifth as she took her place on the start line in the Catalan capital.
It what was at the time the closest finish in Olympic history, the first five women flashed across the line seemingly together. There was an interminable five-minute wait before the scoreboard flashed up confirmation that Devers had won in 10.82, ahead of Juliet Cuthbert of Jamaica (10.83), Russia’s Irina Privalova (10.84), Devers’ US teammate Gwen Torrence (10.86) and Jamaica’s Merlene Ottey (10.88).
It was, by coincidence, the third straight victory in the event by a UCLA student, following Evelyn Ashford’s success in Los Angeles in 1984 and Florence Griffith-Joyner’s triumph in Seoul in 1988.
Undiagnosed disorder for two and a half years
It could have been just another outsider-come-good story but it was much more than that. Just two years previously, Devers had been a physical wreck. She came within two days of having her feet amputated.
Unknown to her, she had been suffering from the symptoms of Graves’ disease, an autoimmune disorder which causes an overactive thyroid gland.
The symptoms had started in June 1988, with migraines, dizziness and a temporary loss of vision in one eye. Devers still managed to qualify for the Seoul Olympics that year but exited the 100m hurdles at the semifinal stage.
Doctors diagnosed stress and athlete’s foot but Devers continued to deteriorate. Only her persistence saved her. She refused to accept that her condition was not serious.
“I was finally diagnosed in September 1990,” she recalled, speaking at the medallists’ press conference in Barcelona. “I was told I was two weeks away from being cancerous.
“My condition had been wrongly diagnosed. They told me it was athlete’s foot. I don’t have a degree but I could tell there was more to it.
“My weight ballooned from 95lbs to 137lbs within a week. I suffered memory loss, migraine, loss of vision, and I had three menstrual cycles every month. I looked like a monster.
“The condition went undiagnosed for two and half years. They told me, ‘You’re an athlete. You’re fine, just fatigued and stressed out. Take time off.’
“I did, but in February last year I started getting blood blisters on my feet. The doctor said it was just a bad case of athlete’s foot, but I was crawling on my hands and knees.
“I can’t describe the pain. It was so excruciating. I would get back into bed and my knees would start to itch. Twenty minutes after the itching, they would bleed.
“I was told later that if I’d walked on my feet for two more days they would have had to have been amputated.”
Devers had a cyst the size of a child’s fist removed from her thyroid. As she was registered on the US drug-testing programme, she was unable to take the beta blockers that would have relieved the side effects of radiation treatment.
“To be here as an Olympic champion is a miracle,” she said. “I’d like people to use me as an example that anything is possible.
“Two years ago I was nearly gone. Now I believe there is no barrier I cannot get over.”
That was not strictly true. In the 100m hurdles final in Barcelona, Devers surged ahead from the fourth barrier and she led by a metre at halfway – only to falter at the final flight. As she rose to clear it, she glanced to her right, clattered the hurdle with her lead leg and lost balance.
Her momentum carried her forward to the line, but she was passed with 3m remaining, finishing fifth in 12.75. Paraskevi Patoulidou prevailed in 12.64, becoming the first Greek track and field Olympic gold medal winner since Konstantinos Tsiklitiras won the standing long jump in Stockholm in 1912.
Back-to-back OIympic 100m double
Devers took the world outdoor 100m hurdles titles in 1993 and 1995 but again finished outside the Olympic medal frame in her specialist event on home ground in Atlanta in 1996, missing bronze by 0.01 in fourth place.
Instead, in the city that was to become her home in post-competitive retirement, Devers ran her way into the annals of track and field history as only the second woman to win back to back Olympic 100m titles, emulating her fellow countrywoman Wyomia Tyus, who prevailed in 1964 and 1968.
Two Jamaicans, of course, have since followed: Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce (2008-2012) and Elaine Thompson-Herah (2016-2021). In successfully defending her title, Devers denied the trailblazing female speed merchant from the Caribbean isle, in the most nail-biting manner.
The fast-starting Devers was caught by Ottey at 60m and the two women fought neck-and-neck all of the way through the line. Both were clocked at 10.94 but the photo-finish picture gave the verdict to the US sprinter by a margin of 0.005, just 5cm.
It was a repeat of the 100m final at the 1993 World Championships in Stuttgart. Devers and Ottey were timed at 10.82 on that occasion. The photo showed that Devers’ right shoulder had cut the line fractionally first. The difference was a miniscule 0.001: 10.811 to 10.812.
The margin was more clear cut when it came to the 4x100m relay final in Atlanta, Devers collecting the third Olympic gold of her career with a second leg run in a US quartet that finished clear winners in 41.95, with Bahamas second in 42.14 and Jamaica (featuring Ottey and Cuthbert) in third.
Fighting for greater awareness of Graves’ disease
Thereafter, Olympics-wise, Devers poured her energy into a quest for gold in her first-string event. It was not to be.
She started as favourite in Sydney in 2000 but suffered a hamstring injury in her semifinal and pulled up after five hurdles. In Athens four years later, her fifth Olympic appearance, she failed to clear the first barrier in her heat, the victim of a calf injury.
Now 55, the hugely decorated sprint hurdler and sprinter spends much of her time fighting for greater awareness of Graves’ disease. “No-one should have to go through what I went through,” Devers told CNN earlier this year. “The way you alleviate that suffering is through education.”
"Indoors is fun" – Pearson gifts Sopot 2014 singlet and spikes to MOWA
When you happen to live on Australia’s Gold Coast, with its sub-tropical climate and 300 days of sunshine every year, indoor athletics must seem like an alien concept.
For Sally Pearson, though, leaving behind the sun and heading halfway around the world to tread the track and field “boards” proved to be a worthwhile exercise.
Not that the Gold Coast sprint hurdler with the Midas touch was a prolific indoor racer. In an international career that spanned 16 years, the two-time world outdoor, one-time Olympic 100m hurdles champion and seventh fastest 100m hurdler of all-time only contested nine indoor meets over the barriers.
Three of those meets happened to be World Indoor Championships, and, in turn, they featured the joy, the frustration and the physical pain that hallmarked Pearson’s long and productive career.
Sopot silver
Now 35, living happily in competitive retirement with husband Kieran and one-year-old daughter Ruby, Pearson has generously donated the spikes and singlet from the second of those global indoor campaigns to the ever-expanding Museum of World Athletics (MOWA).
The 2014 World Indoor Championships in the Polish seaside resort of Sopot required Pearson to harness the fighting spirit she doubtless inherited from her single mother Anne, who worked two jobs to make enough money to support her daughter’s burgeoning athletics ambitions.
Pearson arrived in Sopot as the defending champion, success at the 2012 World Indoor Championships in Istanbul (in 7.73) having maintained the momentum of her stunning world outdoor success in Daegu in 2011 through to what proved to be a victorious Olympic year campaign.
However, she was still rebuilding her form, technique, and confidence after being undermined by two hamstring tears in 2013. She led the world rankings with a 7.79 clocking in Berlin but whacked the ultimate hurdle in the final and had to settle for silver in 7.85, 0.05 behind the emerging Nia Ali of the US. “I stuffed up,” Pearson lamented, with characteristic Aussie frankness.
Hampered by injury, she exited at the semifinal stage of the 2018 championships in Birmingham, her final taste of track and field indoors.
“Indoors is fun,” she said in Sopot. “It’s got a huge atmosphere because the crowd are so much closer. I think that’s what I like about it the most.”
Melbourne’s 80,000 home crowd
It was in the outdoor arenas, however, that the pride of the Gold Coast Victory club was at her sparkling best.
After dabbling in swimming and gymnastics, Sally Pearson – née McLellan – first made her mark in track and field in 2001, winning the 100m and the 90m hurdles at the Australian Youth Championships as a 14-year-old. Guided by Sharon Hannan, her coach until 2013, she combined sprinting and hurdling throughout her formative years.
It was in the 100m hurdles that she claimed a world youth title in 2003 at Sherbrooke in Canada, where Usain Bolt (just a month older, having been born in August 1986) took the boys’ 200m in a championship record of 20.40. McLellan prevailed in 13.42.
A month later, still only 16, the future Sally Pearson became Australia’s youngest ever representative at the World Championships. Making her senior international debut in Paris. she was entrusted with anchor leg duties in the 4x100m relay heats.
At the 2004 World U20 Championships in Grosseto, Italy, McLellan claimed a bronze medal in the 100m, clocking a personal best of 11.40, but finished fourth in the 100m hurdles final, missing a second podium place by 0.01.
The following year her twin talents took her into the record books as the first woman to win the senior Australian 100m and 100m hurdles titles and early in 2006, still a teenager, she sampled the pressure cooker of a home major championships at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne.
The athletics events were held on a specially laid track and field arena inside the iconic MCG, the Melbourne Cricket Ground, with 80,000-plus crowds replicating something of the 2000 Sydney Olympic atmosphere. It proved to be a rollercoaster experience for McLellan.
She reached the final of the flat 100m, finishing seventh in 11.50, but crashed out in dramatic, heart-breaking style while challenging for a medal in the 100m hurdles final. Consolation came with a bronze in the 4x100m relay, the home quartet taking third place behind Jamaica and England.
It was at the end of her prolonged 2006 season, at the World Cup meet in Athens in September, that McLellan broke through the 13-second barrier in the high hurdles, finishing fourth in 12.95. Then, six months later, at the Australian Championships in Brisbane in March 2007, she improved to 12.92, shaving 0.01 off Pam Ryan’s 34-year-old national record.
That year she continued to pursue both the 100m and the 100m hurdles, reaching the semifinals of each at the World Championships in Osaka and lowering her lifetime best over the flat to 11.14. That, however, proved to be the limit of her personal ambition as a sprinter – and her fastest time too.
World title and World Athlete of the Year
Come Olympic year, in 2008, McLellan channelled her focus solely on the 100m hurdles. It paid off in the Beijing Bird’s Nest.
In a dramatic finish, as clear favourite Lolo Jones hit the ninth hurdle and stumbled home seventh and her US teammate Dawn Harper took gold in 12.54, the five women from second to sixth flashed across the line virtually together. Just 0.02 separated them and, after the photo-finish picture had been scrutinised, an ecstatic McLellan was given the silver medal in 12.64, the same time as bronze medallist Priscilla Lopes-Schliep of Canada.
Hampered by a torn disc in her back, McLellan finished fifth in the 2009 world outdoor final in Berlin and then won the 2010 Commonwealth title in Delhi before entering the purple – or golden – patch of her career in 2011.
By now, she was Sally Pearson, having married school sweetheart Kieran Pearson in April 2010.
In the semifinals of the World Championships in Daegu, Pearson lowered her Oceania record to 12.36 (0.3m/s), then blitzed to her first global crown with a stunning 12.28 (1.1m/s) in the final. It moved her to the No.4 spot on the world all-time list – behind Bulgarians Yordanka Donkova (12.21) and Ginka Zagorcheva (12.25) and Russia’s Lyudmila Narozhilenko (12.26) – although it now ranks seventh best.
The hot favourite delivers Olympic gold
Then, after world indoor triumph in Istanbul, came Olympic glory at London 2012.
Voted Female World Athlete of the Year in 2011, Pearson needed all of her steely determination to overcome the mounting pressure and the challenge of her rivals. There were inevitable parallels, and contrasts, to Cathy Freeman, who rode the host nation’s expectations to her momentous, monumental 400m victory at the Sydney Olympics.
Back in 2000, Freeman travelled 11,000 miles to escape the mounting pressures of home by preparing for the Games in London, alongside her British rival Donna Fraser. Pearson based herself close to London in Kent, her mother’s home county in England, living with her aunt.
That might have afforded some protection from the attentions of home but when Pearson emerged from training to take part in her final test before the Games, the London Grand Prix at Crystal Palace, she was the reddest of hot favourites. She had been unbeaten by any of her rivals in 31 hurdles races, outdoors and in, stretching back to August 2010. She had lost in Brussels in 2011 but it was one of the barriers that beat her in the Belgian capital; she fell at the sixth hurdle.
Warming up for her heat at Crystal Palace, she clattered into the second hurdle and tumbled to the rain-sodden track. She picked herself up but was clearly rattled. The usual decisive thrust of acceleration was absent as she rose from the blocks. She had to dig deep to hold off Kellie Wells, pipping the US hurdler by 0.01 in 12.53. Wells got the better of her in the final, prevailing by 0.02 in 12.57.
When it came to Games time, however, Pearson proved her thoroughbred pedigree – and her mettle. The resurgent Harper pushed her hard all the way in the final but the Australian edged the defending champion by 0.02, setting an Olympic record of 12.35, with Wells a distant third in 12.48.
London gold again. The last hurrah!
The following year Pearson suffered two hamstring tears but still took world outdoor silver in Moscow. In 2014 there was world indoor silver and a second Commonwealth gold, but in 2015 she broke her wrist and left forearm after crashing in the Golden Gala in Rome and in 2016 a hamstring injury kept her out of the Rio Olympics.
And so, to the 2017 World Championships in London. Keni Harrison lined up clear favourite on the track where she scorched to her 12.20 world record twelve months prior. The US athlete could only finish fourth, however, as Pearson regained her Midas touch, winning from Harper again in London in 12.59.
It proved to be a final hurrah. An achilles tendon injury cruelly ruled Pearson out of her home Gold Coast Commonwealth Games in 2018. Then, in 2019, came the announcement of her competitive retirement.
Now working as a mentor for Athletics Australia, the Gold Coast’s finest can draw upon many a golden memory for inspiration.
“Winning Olympic gold was obviously huge,” she told Steve Landells in an interview for World Athletics’ Personal Bests series. “But my career highlight came at the 2011 World Championships in Daegu, because of the time I ran in the final (12.28) and winning the gold medal.
“I couldn’t have asked for any more.”
Japan's first Olympic champion and New York City Marathon among seven new recipients of Heritage Plaques
World Athletics Heritage Plaques have been awarded today (9) to seven recipients in Asia, Europe, NACAC and South America, across the categories of Competition, Culture and Legend.
The World Athletics Heritage Plaque, a location-based recognition, is awarded for “an outstanding contribution to the worldwide history and development of the sport of track & field athletics and of out of stadia athletics disciplines such as cross country, mountain, road, trail and ultra-running, and race walking.”
The programme was inaugurated by World Athletics President Sebastian Coe on 2 December 2018 and today’s announcement brings the total number of plaques worldwide to 71.
Category: Competition
Enschede Marathon
The 75th anniversary (2022) of historically one of the classic elite marathons of the pre-mass race era.
The Enschede Marathon is the oldest marathon in the Netherlands and Western Europe. At the first edition, in July 1947, 51 runners took part. Today there are almost 11,000 participants and the numbers are still growing.
Veikko Karvonen, Jim Peters, Ron Hill, Priscilla Welch and more lately Eliud Kipchoge are some of the big-name winners.
New York City Marathon
The 50th edition (2021) of the marathon which helped establish and define the worldwide mass race movement.
The first New York City Marathon took place in 1970 and was held entirely in Central Park. There were just 127 entrants and only 55 of them finished. By 2018 and the number of participants crossing the finish line was over 55,000.
Among the victors in the Big Apple have been Bill Rodgers, Douglas Wakiihuri, Paul Tergat, Grete Waitz, Ingrid Kristiansen, Mary Keitany.
Thames Hare & Hounds
Established in 1868. The oldest adult cross-country running club in the world. Based in Roehampton in southwest London.
The club was created by members of Thames Rowing Club at Putney who were looking for a way to keep fit during the winter. They staged three ‘Thames Handicap Steeplechases’ on Wimbledon Common between 7 December 1867 and 21 March 1868.
Out of these races, Thames Hare and Hounds emerged, staging its first run on 17 October 1868 in the form of a paperchase, a game which originated in Shrewsbury School in 1819.
Rising star Knighton taking one step at a time in pursuit of greatness
For many young sprinters that have emerged in recent years, being touted as ‘the next Usain Bolt’ can be something of a poisoned chalice.
No one, not least a teenager, needs that kind of pressure on their shoulders, after all. And the focus for any young athlete should of course be on making a name for themselves; not on trying to become a replica of a past once-in-a-generation star.
But sometimes the comparisons are unavoidable – especially when a superstar’s records are broken.
Erriyon Knighton made headlines earlier this year when he broke Usain Bolt’s world U18 best for 200m by 0.02. The 17-year-old US sprinter scorched to a 20.11 victory in Jacksonville in late May, beating a field that included established international seniors including 2016 world indoor 60m champion Trayvon Bromell, European 100m champion Zharnel Hughes and 2014 European 200m champion Adam Gemili.
Knighton, who earlier in the year had clocked a wind-assisted 9.99 and wind-legal PB of 10.16 over 100m, didn’t compete again until the US Olympic Trials where, at the time of the first round, he had just the 10th-fastest PB of the 200m field.
But he caught almost everyone – opponents and fans – by surprise when he blazed to a 20.04 PB in the first round, finishing comfortably ahead of world champion Noah Lyles, breaking the North American U20 record and rewriting Bolt’s world U18 best.
This was just the first round. And it looked as though Knighton wasn’t even going flat-out.
Sure enough, he moved up a gear the next day for the semifinals. Once again, Knighton was drawn in the same heat as Lyles. And once again, Knighton produced the fastest time of the round with a 19.88 PB, this time breaking Bolt’s world U20 record of 19.93 that had stood since 2004. And this, despite Knighton having two more full years as an U20 athlete.
“Heading into the US Trials, for me it was just about making the final, I didn't know I was going to make the team,” says Knighton. “My prelim was a good race, I ran 20.04, and I felt really good and made it to the semifinals. Then I ran 19.88, which put me at the top of the list going into the finals. At that point, it became all about making the team, so I just ran as fast as I could and hoped that I'd make the team.”
Little more than 24 hours later, Knighton lined up for the biggest race of his short career to date. Despite being the youngest in the field by six years, he wasn’t overawed by the occasion and kept his cool to finish third in a lifetime best – and another world U20 record – of 19.84. He was just 0.1 behind Lyles, 0.06 behind Kenny Bednarek, who would go on to take Olympic silver over the distance, and 0.06 ahead of Fred Kerley, who went on to earn Olympic 100m silver.
More significantly, though, Knighton’s third-place finish meant he had booked his spot on the US team for the Tokyo Olympics.
In between the Trials and the Games, Knighton had one race and finished a highly respectable third at the Continental Tour Gold meeting in Szekesfehervar, just 0.06 behind Canada’s Andre De Grasse, who went on to win gold over the distance in Tokyo.
The competition was a valuable one ahead of his Olympic debut. And once he arrived in Tokyo, he simply tried to soak in as much of the experience as he could.
“After securing my place on the team, I was nervous because it felt as though I had a new burden on my back,” he says. “The Olympics was just my second time competing overseas, but I had to just keep my mind focused and train consistently.
“It felt pretty good to be part of the US team,” he added. “When I got to Tokyo, it felt like a new world. It's so different to the US, so when I got there I was just taking everything in. I talked to some of the athletes who've been doing this for a really long time, trying to learn from them and take in every piece of knowledge I could get because it was my first Olympics.”
Knighton’s Olympic encounter was incredibly similar to his US Trials campaign. Once again, he won his heat (20.55) and semifinal (20.02). Once again, he finished behind Bednarek and Lyles in the final. The only difference was that De Grasse finished ahead of the US trio, meaning Knighton finished fourth, just outside the medals.
Although he was initially disappointed to miss out on a medal by just 0.19, Knighton soon realised the magnitude of his achievement.
“At the time I was a bit upset that I didn't get a medal, but I tried to look on the bright side of things and realised that placing fourth at such a young age is a huge accomplishment,” he says.
“My Tokyo experience, and getting fourth place, is actually my highlight of the year. And it gives me something to build on going into the next Olympics.”
Rising star, guided by established stars
Knighton’s Olympic performance and numerous world U20 records led to him being named the Male Rising Star of the Year at the World Athletics Awards 2021.
He beat the likes of French sprint hurdler Sasha Zhoya, US 400m hurdler Sean Burrell, Ethiopian distance runner Tadese Worku and Kenyan 800m runner Emmanuel Wanyonyi. Given the high-quality list of finalists, Knighton was pleasantly surprised to receive the award.
“I really didn't know (if I would win),” he says. “I thought it was going to be super close between me and the hurdler (Zhoya).”
A big part of Knighton’s success this year, he says, is down to the people and training partners with whom he surrounds himself. He trains in Florida alongside the likes of world 110m hurdles champion Grant Holloway, 2016 world indoor long jump champion Marquis Dendy and 2016 world U20 long jump champion Yanis David.
Holloway, in particular, has become something of a mentor to Knighton.
“Almost everything I've learned about being a professional athlete has come from Grant,” says Knighton. “After the Olympic Trials, he told me to just believe in myself and to not let anyone set unrealistic goals for me. He told me the sky is the limit.
“Going into each training session, everyone in the group has the shared goal of getting better. I also know that I will continue to improve simply by being around them because I can see they're all hungry to do the work that's required to achieve their big goals.”
Knighton has already started to turn his attention to his targets for 2022, which includes earning a global medal on home soil at the World Athletics Championships Oregon22.
“Making the podium is my goal for the World Championships,” he says. “And I’d love to be picked for a relay, whether it’s the 4x100m or 4x400m. I'd also love to compete at the World U20 Championships in Cali. I feel like I missed an opportunity by not being in Nairobi this year.”
He has also learned to embrace the Bolt comparisons, taking them as a compliment as opposed to a burden.
“It feels really good (to be faster than Bolt was at this age), but I try to stay humble with it and not get a big head,” he says. “I just have to keep training and hopefully I can keep progressing at this rate.
“I would like to break Usain Bolt's world record. I'm going to do all I can to get there, but I'll just take it step by step.
“Technically and physically, I think I can get a lot stronger,” he adds. “Getting a bigger base and knowing how to run the 200m right. Once I learn how to really run it, I think I'll be a lot better.”
Mu and Wilson set to clash over 800m at Millrose Games
Organisers of the Millrose Games have announced that Olympic champion Athing Mu will take on world bronze medallist Ajee Wilson in the 800m at the World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold meeting on 29 January.
Aged just 19, Mu has this year established herself as the best 800m runner in the world and was undefeated at the distance indoors and outdoors. She won Olympic gold in Tokyo, breaking Wilson’s US 800m record, and then earned a second gold medal in the 4x400m. She went on to lower the US 800m record to 1:55.04 when winning at the Wanda Diamond League meeting in Eugene.
“Millrose is the ideal place to begin my season,” said Mu, who last week was named by World Athletics as the 2021 Female Rising Star. “The audience brings great energy and I always look forward to the atmosphere and competing at The Armory – It's iconic.”
Wilson, a six-time Millrose Games champion, has not lost at this meeting since 2013. Wilson broke her own US indoor record at the 2020 Millrose Games, clocking 1:58.29.
“It's been a while,” Wilson said, referring to last season’s cancelled Millrose Games due to the pandemic. “I'm super excited to return to The Armory for the Millrose Games.”
World and Olympic finalist Natoya Goule-Toppin, the Jamaican record-holder indoors and outdoors, will join Mu and Wilson in the 800m at the Millrose Games.
These 800m stars are the latest big names to be announced for the Millrose Games, following the recent confirmations of Olympic shot put champion Ryan Crouser, world shot put champion Joe Kovacs and US 1500m champions Elle Purrier St Pierre and Cole Hocker.