Abby Steiner Remains on Bowerman Watch List After Collegiate Record Performance

LEXINGTON, Ky. — Kentucky track & field senior sprinter Abby Steiner has been named to The Bowerman Award Watch List in the post-conference championship update (Update No. 6) by the United States Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association for her participation in the collegiate record 4x400m relay and top times in the 200- and 100-meter races on the collegiate and world stage from Southeastern Conference Championships.

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 11th appearance on The Bowerman watch list in her career after appearing on the preseason watch list in January, six watch list updates since then and four during the 2020-21 season. 

Since Steiner’s last watch list appearance on May 4, she earned her fourth and fifth SEC individual medals with silver finishes in both the 100m and 200m while also being a member of the gold-medal winning and collegiate record 4x400m relay (3:21.93). 

In the relay, Steiner ran a blazing 48.72 seconds as the third leg, which set Alexis Holmes up to maintain the lead and get the collegiate record. 

Steiner’s runner-up 200m time of 22.07 was also top 10 all-time collegiately and was only two hundredths off her personal best (22.05). 

The day before SEC Championships began, Steiner was named the SEC Women’s Outdoor Track & Field Scholar-Athlete of the Year to add to her long list of accolades, including the same award from the indoor season. 

Steiner’s 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 and was taken off the list in April 2021. 

The All-American from Ohio is the seventh UK women’s 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. 

The Bowerman was first awarded in 2009 and official watch lists began in 2010. 

Steiner’s Senior Season 

Steiner earned a spot on this year’s watch list through consistent collegiate and school record-breaking performances in the 2021-22 season. 

Shortly before SEC Championships, Steiner ran the third fastest outdoor 200m in collegiate history and second fastest in the NCAA this season with a wind-legal 22.05 run at the Kentucky Invitational. It was also a school record, meaning Steiner’s name is now tied to seven different program records. 

She also played a part in the then-third fastest 4x400m of the collegiate season, with the group of Steiner, Alexis Holmes, Karimah Davis and Dajour Miles clocking 3:25.79 for a school record in front of Big Blue Nation on UKTF’s Senior Day. 

In April, aside from her 22.05 run in the 200m at home, Steiner made history in the 100m in early April at the Joe May Invitational, running the fifth fastest 100m in collegiate history at 10.82 seconds, which is a school record. It is also the current wind-legal collegiate lead for 2022 and second fastest in the world this season. 

She also ran the fastest 200m in collegiate history with a headwind over 1.7 m/s when she ran 22.38 into a 5.6 m/s headwind at LSU. If wind was accounted for, it would convert to 21.67. 

To top off an excellent start to the outdoor season, Steiner ran the second leg in the current second-ranked 4x100m relay in the NCAA this season, helping the team to a time of 42.46. 

Steiner closed her indoor season by defending her NCAA title in the 200-meter dash with a 22.16-second run Birmingham, Alabama. It was her second fastest 200m run of her career and second fastest in American history behind her own American-record mark. 

It was also the fastest women’s 200m in NCAA Championships meet history and broke the Birmingham CrossPlex facility record. 

Steiner earned silver in the 60m with a school-record time of 7.10 at NCAA Indoor Championships, which was the highest Steiner has ever placed in the event on the NCAA stage, in addition to leading the 4x400m to a bronze medal. 

Steiner cemented her name in American track & field history on February 26 when she ran the fastest American indoor 200m ever and second fastest in world history at 22.09 seconds to earn the SEC gold. This was her third year in a row winning the 200m SEC gold medal and third time breaking the collegiate record. 

She also broke the SEC Championships record, school record, meet record and Gilliam Indoor Stadium record at Texas A&M. 

The previous fastest indoor 200m in American history was Gwen Torrence’s 22.33 at the USA Championship in 1996. 

The national champion is now .22 away from Jamaican Merlene Ottey’s 21.87 indoor world record. 

In the 2021-22 track & field season, Steiner has earned the following accomplishments: 

• 200m American & collegiate indoor record holder (22.09) 

• Two-time 200m collegiate record breaker 

• Member of collegiate record outdoor 4x400m relay (3:21.93) 

• NCAA and SEC 200m title (indoors) 

• NCAA silver and SEC bronze in the 60m 

• NCAA 4x400m relay bronze 

• Fifth fastest 100m runner in collegiate history 

• Third fastest outdoor 200m runner in collegiate history 

• SEC Women’s Runner of the Year 

• SEC Indoor Scholar-Athlete of the Year 

• USTFCCCA Southeast Region Women’s Runner of the Year  

• Four-time SEC Women’s Runner of the Week 

• Five-time USTFCCCA Athlete of the Week 

• Seven-time school record holder (60m, 100m, indoor 200m, outdoor 200m, 300m, indoor 4x400m, outdoor 4x400m) 

• Five Bowerman Watchlist appearances 

In addition to her 200m gold at SECs, Steiner also won bronze in the 60m with a time of 7.19 and was a member of the bronze medal-winning 4x400m relay (3:25.89) that ran under the previous collegiate record. 

At Clemson in February, Steiner broke the 200m collegiate record for the second time in her career and first time this season when she ran 22.37 for an event win, gaining sole possession of the record she used to share with Olympian Gabby Thomas. 

Steiner broke the collegiate record in the 200m for the first time at NCAA Championships in 2021 when she tied Thomas’s then-collegiate record of 22.38 for her first national title. 

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