Weekend Guide: Marquee Sprint Races To Watch In Bermuda + Newbury Park Heads To Arcadia

This is the CITIUS MAG Newsletter by Chris Chavez. If you’ve been forwarded this email or stumbled upon a link online, you can sign up and subscribe here:

Happy Friday, friends! I’m writing this newsletter for you from a cafe in Rotterdam. I spent the past few days working alongside the NN Running Team to help out with their five-year anniversary celebration, which included hosting their NN Running Team University webinar. Feel free to give it a watch if you want some insights into its history and how the team operates through conversation with staff members and athletes like Eliud Kipchoge, Joshua Cheptegei and Geoffrey Kamworor. (If you just want to see me ask Kipchoge about our shared love for Kelly Clarkson’s music, I posted that clip to my Instagram.)

I’ll be traveling for much of Saturday but I’ll be glued to my phone on airplane WiFi, looking at results from the USATF Bermuda Games, which is the first stop on the World Athletics Continental Gold Tour series. The meet will be televised on NBC from 2:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. ET. You can find the full schedule and entries here. In addition to that, we’ll also see some fast times coming from high schoolers in California as Runnerspace broadcasts the Arcadia Invitational all throughout the weekend with a free live stream for fans.

Next weekend, we’ll be all about the Boston Marathon. We’re excited to share that we’re partnering with Brooks for the weekend. There’s a whole weekend of programming set, including a panel hosted by Des Linden, shakeout runs, plus a live recording of the More Than Running podcast. And of course, we’ll be doing an alternate broadcast as the race unfolds on Monday featuring me, Kyle Merber, Dana Giordano and other special guests. Mute your TV and watch along with us. Fans are welcome! RSVP to the events you want here. 

But before all that, here’s a quick look at some of the top races to watch for this Saturday, starting with the action from Bermuda…

Women’s 100m hurdles: Jasmine Camacho-Quinn Returns | 2:33 p.m. ET

Jasmine Camacho-Quinn will contest the 100m hurdles for the first time since her victory in Tokyo, where she became Puerto Rico’s first-ever Olympic gold medalist in track and field. She was also just the second-ever Olympic gold medalist in Puerto Rico’s history after Monica Puig’s tennis gold in 2016. Last year was a near-perfect season for her. She won every race that she started. The only blemish is a DQ at the Duval County Challenge in Jacksonville, Florida. Aside from that, you have to go back to summer 2019 for the last time she actually lost a race. It will be good to see her back in action. She’ll also be doubling back to run the 200m at 3:31 p.m. ET.

Men’s 110m hurdles: Grant Holloway Opener | 2:39 p.m. ET

Grant Holloway looks to carry forward the momentum from his World Indoor Championship gold medal as he opens his outdoor season. The fastest 110m hurdle season-opener of his career was 13.14 in the heat and then 13.04 in the final last year in Miramar, Florida.

Men’s 200m: Steven Gardiner vs. Jereem Richards | 3:39 p.m. ET

Olympic 400m champion Steven Gardiner of the Bahamas had a quiet indoor season by his standards, racing just twice. Granted, he tied the indoor world record of 31.56 in the 300m on Jan. 28 in Columbia, South Carolina, in one of those races, before calling it a season and getting back to training. He started his outdoor campaign with a 20.28 on March 18. 

Meanwhile, Jereem Richards used the indoor season to capture his first individual world championship gold medal, winning the 400m at Worlds in 45.00 to break Trinidad and Tobago’s national record. 

So we should have a good race between the 400m World Indoor champion and 400m Olympic champion to kick off the outdoor season. Gardiner has the faster 200m personal best, 19.75 to Richards’s 19.97. They’ve only ever raced head-to-head once before, in a straight 200m at the Boston Boost Games in 2018, where Gardiner won and Richards finished third.

Don’t overlook the fact that USA’s Isiah Young is also in the field and finished last year with a season’s best of 19.99 — tied for ninth-fastest of 2021. His personal best is 19.86.

Women’s 400m: Shericka Jackson Moves Back Up | 3:47 p.m. ET

Jamaica’s Shericka Jackson pulled together an impressive 2021 campaign that was highlighted by the Olympic bronze medal in the 100m. Much like Fred Kerley, she proved that a 400m specialist can also thrive in the 100m. Many of her world championship medals and her Olympic bronze medal from 2016 came in the 400m. She only raced the longer event three times in 2021 before opting for the 100m/200m double for Tokyo. Indoors, she focused on the 60m(!) and finished 5th at the World Indoor Championships. She’s already opened her season with a 51.29 victory in Kingston on April 2. That was the fastest she’s gone in the event since taking bronze at the 2019 World Championships. You have to start wondering what her focus will be this year - the Oregon22 schedule makes a 100/200 or 200/400 double possible, but the 400m heats go off the morning of the 100m final.

She’ll be challenged by her compatriot Candice McLeod and a U.S. contingent that includes Lynna Irby and Wadeline Jonathas as the only other women in the field who have broken 50 seconds.

PODCAST BREAK: We have a new episode of TRACK SNACKS (presented by Hayward Magic) on the CITIUS MAG Podcast feed. We are now 13 weeks to go until the World Athletics Championships Oregon22 .

Every Friday, we’ll share the story of an athlete we’re excited to see in TrackTown USA for the #SummerOfHayward.

Visit https://citiusmag.com/summerofhayward/ for all the information on dates and tickets for all the major events happening at Hayward Field this summer.

Men’s 400m: Kirani James Sighting! | 3:55 p.m. ET

Last summer, Kirani James completed his Olympic medal set by taking bronze in the 400m to go along with his gold from 2012 and silver from 2016 - all before he turns 30 in September. It’s wild to realize that it’s been over a decade since he won his two NCAA 400m titles for Alabama. He’s still at it and has mastered the art of showing up when it matters most. He’s racing here for the first time since last September. 

The U.S. will be represented by Kahmari Montgomery  44.23, the second-fastest PR in the field),  Noah Williams (44.30 PR) and Aldrich Bailey (45.19 PR).

Women’s 800m: Ajee’ Wilson Rolls Into Outdoor Season | 4:05 p.m. ET

Ajee’ Wilson finally got her gold medal with her win at the World Indoor Championships. She’s turning it around 20 days later to open her outdoor campaign in Bermuda. If we look at her last two regular outdoor seasons (not including 2020), she’s opened up with a 1:58.83 at the 2019 Doha Diamond League and a 1:58.93 at the Trials of Miles Texas Qualifier racing an indoor season. This field may not be as talent-heavy as those but we’ll see what she can pop after ending her indoor season with a 1:59.09 season’s best in the World Championship final.

Women’s 100m: Teahna Daniels, Gabby Thomas, Javianne Oliver Star | 4:16 p.m. ET

I am taking a risk here in previewing the women’s 100m final because you never know who makes it and who doesn’t based on the prelim earlier in the day. That said, I’m looking forward to seeing what Teahna Daniels does in her first 100m race of the season. I had her on as a guest on the podcast last summer because I didn’t think she got as much credit as she deserved for her season. She was the only American woman to reach the 100m final in Tokyo and then she ran a huge personal best of 10.83 to finish fourth at the Pre Classic. Sha’Carri Richardson finishing last behind the Jamaican sweep captured a lot of the headlines but Daniels is a star in her own right. 

Olympic 200m bronze medalist Gabby Thomas is looking strong after opening her season with a heck of a weekend at the Texas Relays two weeks ago. She ran 10.92 (+2.9 m/s wind) and 21.69 (+3.1m/s wind) to win both events there. 

Javianne Oliver, who was crowned the U.S. Olympic Trials champion after Richardson’s DQ from the results, is also in the field. She owns an official personal best of 10.96 but did go 10.83 with the aid of the wind in the Olympic Trials semifinals. Oliver and Daniels are tied at 3–3 in the head-to-head 100m races dating back to 2017. Daniels and Thomas are 1-1 in their career head-to-head 100m races also dating back to 2017. Thomas and Oliver are also 1–1 in their career head-to-head 100m races. Consider this weekend a nice tiebreaker across the board!

Don’t forget that 2021 double NCAA champion Cambrea Sturgis is also entered, after running 10.74 last year. She finished 5th in the 60m at the U.S. indoor championships this year.

Men’s 100m: Watch The Noah Lyles Experiment Test No. 1 | 4:25 p.m. ET

I’m taking the same risk here in trying to predict the men’s 100m final field but I think it’ll be a safe bet to say that Noah Lyles and Erriyon Knighton will be in it. 

I’m particularly interested to see the type of race that Lyles puts together after a winter of sharpening the first part of his race by racing the 60m. He’s an excellent closer in the final stages of the race and that’s underscored by the way he pulls away from the competition in the 200m. So when he shows up in the 100m this weekend, I think we should be looking at what sort of start he gets off to and those first stages of the race. He closed out his indoor season with a 6.55 personal best at the Müller Indoor Birmingham Grand Prix. His last 100m race was a seventh-place finish in the U.S. Olympic Trials final where he was open about how he watched the race get away from him. He knows what he’s had to work on so it doesn’t happen again so we’ll see what improvements or tweaks have been made.

Erriyon Knighton celebrated his 18th birthday in late January. The last time we saw him compete was a fourth place finish in the Olympic 200m final. He has run the 100m just three times since turning professional in January 2021. His personal best is 10.16 so there’s a chance that could fall in the right race.

It’s been a decade since Yohan Blake sat atop the world sprint scene alongside Usain Bolt, but he’s still at it at 32 years old. Last year, he ran a season’s best of 9.95 and reached the semifinals of the Tokyo Olympics. He ran 10.25 last weekend for his first 100m of the season. He’ll be in the prelim race with Knighton, who was just seven years old when Blake won the 2011 world championships.

If that’s not enough track for your day, there’s a little more before you go to bed happening on the West Coast.

Girls Mile: Sadie Engelhardt Continues Breaking Freshman Records | 11:23 P.M. ET

Ventura High School’s Sadie Engelhardt is a name you should remember. She is just 15 years old and ran 4:36.63 for the mile on March 26 to break the U.S. high school girls’ freshman record. A PR could get her closer to the long-standing 4:36.0 world age-group record for 15-year-olds set by Norway’s Gunvor Hilde in 1979. 

Boys 3200m: More Records From Newbury Park  | 11:50 p.m. ET

It feels like I’ve been writing about Newbury Park’s high school boys team a ton over the past few months, that’s because they continue to run record-setting times and more could come with five of the squad’s athletes competing in the Arcadia Invitational boys 3200m race. Colin Sahlman ran 8:33.32 for the high school boys’ record on Feb. 19 but now he’ll be pushed by his teammates Lex and Leo Young. Lex ran 8:39.57 at this meet last year as a sophomore. Leo Young ran 7:57.06 indoors for 3000m at the Dr. Sander Invitational in January and is coming off a 4:00.77 mile at the Champions Distance Classic on March 27. Colin’s brother Aaron Sahlman was also in the Dr. Sander race and ran 8:01.72, which is also a strong indicator of what he can do on Friday night to join the sub-8:40 club.

In case you haven’t watched it yet, here’s our video of their record-setting 4xMile:

That’s it from me today. As always, thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this, learned something new, or have any questions or commentary on anything featured in this issue, feel free to hit my inbox by replying or writing to [email protected]

Want to support CITIUS MAG? Consider pledging your support on Patreon or pick up some CITIUS MAG merch.

Chris Chavez | Twitter | Instagram | Strava