Steiner Named to The Bowerman Award Preseason Watch List

LEXINGTON, Ky. — University of Kentucky track & field sprinter Abby Steiner has been named to The Bowerman Preseason Watch List by the United States Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association leading into the 2022 indoor track & field season. 

The USTFCCCA announced a 10-person watch list for The Bowerman, which takes into consideration both the indoor and outdoor seasons. This year’s finalists will be announced in June. 

This is Steiner’s fifth appearance on The Bowerman watch list after four of 2021’s watch lists had Steiner among them. 

Her Bowerman watch list debut was on March 3, 2021, five days after breaking the then-Southeastern Conference record in the women’s indoor 200 meters with a blazing 22.41 preliminary run. 

Steiner remained on the watch list through her NCAA Indoor Championship title and collegiate record-performance in the 200m (22.38) in March 2021. However, she saw limited competition during the outdoor season because of injury and was taken off the list in April 2021. 

Steiner is the seventh UK female athlete to make the watch list since the award began in 2009 and the first since semifinalist Jasmine Camacho-Quinn and finalist Sydney McLaughlin were on the watch list together in 2018. 

A senior from Dublin, Ohio, Steiner now has two collegiate records on her resume after she earned the 300m collegiate record of 35.80 seconds during Kentucky’s first meet of the season, the Cardinal Classic. She broke the 40-year-old record of 35.86 set by Nebraska’s Marlene Ottey. Steiner also owns the 200m co-collegiate record of 22.38 in March at NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships. Gabby Thomas of Harvard ran the 200m in the same time in 2018. 

Her first accolade of the 2021-22 season came on December 14 when the USTFCCCA named Steiner the Women’s Athlete of the Week. 

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