During the 2017 Boys and Girls Championship in Kingston, Jamaica on Saturday, 12-year-old Brianna Lyston showed why she is already being tabbed as the successor to Usain Bolt in holding aloft Jamaica’s sprinting supremacy.
Lyston broke the 200-meter meet record by running the time of 23.72 seconds, which is only 2.38 seconds slower than the incomparable Florence Griffith-Joyner‘s world record of 21.34 seconds.
Griffith-Joyner set the mark at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea.
Another RECORD has fallen! Brianna Lyston clocks 23.72 to WIN GOLD in Class 4 Girls 200M FINAL. #Champs2017 pic.twitter.com/bcasepnraP
Team Jamaica (@JamaicaOlympics) April 1, 2017
No other sprinter under 13 has ever run a sub-24-second time for the 200 meters at the meet. In a style reminiscent of eight-time Olympic champion Bolt, Lyston swept all before her in the 100m and 200m events setting a record time in the latter while easing up before the finish line.
Unfortunately, her incredible earlier run of 23.46 seconds in the 200m semi-final was not wind-legal. But wind-aided or not, her performance sent shock waves through the global Track and Field community. In the final, she finished a mind-boggling near-full second ahead of her nearest rival, which is beyond astonishing when considering the level of competition.
It’s only a matter of time before the world’s best female sprinters in the senior ranks are looking over their shoulders for the next coming of Jamaica’s sprinting dominance.
Stay tuned!
