Briana Williams Shatters National High School Record in 100 Meters – runnersworld.com
Briana Williams Shatters National High School Record in 100 Meters runnersworld.com
With the momentum of two Olympic champions in the field pushing her along, 17-year-old Briana Williams sprinted to a breakthrough in the fastest 100-meter …
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- On Friday evening, 17-year-old Briana Williams ran a 10.94 in the 100 meters at the Jamaican Championships.
- The time broke the national high school record and the U18 record.
- Williams shared on Facebook after the race that she competed with a fever, and will not be running the 200 meters later this weekend. She will be headed to the IAAF World Championships in Doha, Qatar, this summer.
With the momentum of two Olympic champions in the field pushing her along, 17-year-old Briana Williams sprinted to a breakthrough in the fastest 100-meter time ever achieved by a female under 18 years old.
The high school junior from Oakland Park, Florida, made history at the Jamaican Championships when she finished third to Elaine Thompson and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce in the 100-meter final on Friday evening in Kingston.
Olympic champions Thompson (2016) and Fraser-Pryce (2008, 2012) put on an electrifying performance as both runners finished stride-for-stride in 10.73. Thompson was awarded the victory by three thousandths of a second. According to the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), the performance was the first race in history in which two women finished inside 10.75 seconds.
Behind them, Williams finished third in 10.94. In the process, she lowered her own national U20 record, which she set previously in the semi-finals, smashed the national high school record, and broke the world U18 record. The previous world junior and U.S. high school record of 10.98 was set in 2015 by Candace Hill at the Brooks PR Invitational.
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By finishing third, Williams also secured her place on the Jamaican national team headed to the IAAF World Championships in Doha, Qatar, this summer.
“I knew this was going to be the hardest race of my life,” Williams told the IAAF. “I am just happy I made the team to Doha and broke 11 seconds as that was my goal all year.”
Before the 100-meter final, she showed promise in the semi-final round with an 11.01 clocking, which lowered her national junior record slightly.
The two-time world junior champion shared on Facebook that she was competing with a fever on Friday and plans to seek a medical exemption for the 200 meters at the championship later this weekend.
Williams’s breakthrough mark of 10.94 is currently tied with Dina Asher-Smith’s season’s best as the fourth-fastest time run in the world this year. Only Thompson, Fraser-Pryce, and NCAA champion Sha’Carri Richardson have run faster marks in 2019.