Abby Steiner Strikes Gold, Ties Collegiate Record at NCAA Indoor Championships

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Kentucky junior sprinter Abby Steiner won the 200-meter dash gold medal in a collegiate-record-tying time at the NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships Saturday in Fayetteville, Arkansas, smashing numerous records in the process. 

Running in lane five of the banked oval in the Randal Tyson Center, Steiner got a great start from the blocks. She had to battle Alabama’s Tamara Clark the entire way, but – as she has done in all seven races this season – held on to strike gold.  Her time of 22.38 seconds …

• Tied the all-time indoor collegiate record and the NCAA Indoor Championship record (also 22.38 by Gabby Thomas of Harvard)
• Tied for second-fastest indoors in United States history (record is 22.33 by Gwen Torrence)
• Tied for fifth-fastest indoors in world history (record of 21.87 by Merlene Ottey of Jamaica)
• Set a personal best (previous best 22.41 at this year’s SEC Indoor Championship preliminaries)
• Broke her own school record of 22.41
• Broke her own SEC record of 22.41
• Broke the facility record (previous record 22.40 by Shaunae Miller-Uibo of the Bahamas and Bianca Knight of the University of Texas)

“Abby did exactly what Coach Hall (UK sprints coach Tim Hall) instructed her and executed it. There is a connection that she and Coach Hall have.  They work hand-in-hand and she believes in his vison.  The best is yet to come for her, I’m excited.”

“Coach Hall told me to be aggressive from the start, never letting off the gas, never getting caught,” Steiner said.  “We executed the same way we have all season, and had to because I had amazing competition to pull me along.”

“It’s amazing, it hasn’t sunk in yet,” Steiner said of the win. “Way back in the fall, Coach Hall and I started talking about this title and the record when training began. Tonight we talked about ‘Isn’t it amazing that we are here?’ He believed in me from the beginning and that’s how it played out.”

Also shining was the UK men’s 4×400 relay, which turned in a school-record performance, and only the nation’s best time of the year by North Carolina A&T prevented the Wildcats from bringing home gold.  The unit of Jacob Smith, Lance Lang, Kennedy Lightner and Dwight St. Hillaire zipped the course in 3:03.61 en route to the second-place finish. Lang had the best leg with a blazing run of 44.94 seconds. 

The Kentucky women’s 4×400 relay of Megan Moss, Steiner, Masai Russell and Dajour Miles completed the evening with a fifth-place finish to pick up four team points. 

St. Hillaire got Saturday afternoon started with a 45.89 time in the 400m dash, improving his mark by .08 from Friday.  He finished eighth in the event to get a point for the Wildcats. Lang followed with a sixth-place showing in the 200m final, timing at 20.88 seconds.

As a team, the Kentucky women finished in 13^th place with 17 total points while the men tied for 14^th with 12 points.  For the Wildcat men, it was the best team finish in a quarter-century, since the Cats were seventh place with 22 points in 1996.

“I’m always pleased when our kids run well and break school records,” Greene continued. “I’m proud of how they competed, ran exceedingly well.”

The meet began Thursday and UK hit the scoreboard when Annika Williams posted a personal best 4173 points to finish sixth in the women’s pentathlon.  Preliminaries in the individual running events were held Friday, with St. Hillaire, Lang and Steiner advancing.

A re-air of the championship will take place Sunday, March 14, at 9 p.m. on ESPNU. 

The Kentucky track program will take a week off from competition before beginning the outdoor season March 26-27 at South Carolina.

Follow along with the Cats on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and on the web at UKathletics.com.

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