Rio Olympics mile relay silver medallist, Nathon Allen and Akeem Bloomfield, ran major personal bests of 44.52 and 44.82 seconds, respectively, to take second and third place behind NCAA leader Fred Kerley’s 44.30 in their open 400-meter final Saturday at the SEC Championships in Columbia, SC after solid qualifiers on Friday.
Allen’s new best puts him at number 3 in the world for 2017 with Bloomfield not too far behind at number 6.
Both Jamaicans Allen and Bloomfield ran on Auburn University’s Men’s 4×400 Relay team (Randall Census, Teray Smith, Akeem Bloomfield, Nathon Allen) taking it to a second-place finish Saturday. The two have been huge factors in the relay’s feats all season, and this time led their school to a 3:02 .10 performance behind Texas A&M’s world leading 3:00.72. Allen motored a 43.48 split to take the team from fifth to second place.
The 4 lap relay effort was bolstered by quality performances from some other relay teams as well as some strong individual performances.
The men’s 4x100m with Jamaicans Raheem Chambers and Odean Skeen garnered four points with a 5th place finish of 39.27. While the women Jamaicans Natalliah Whyte and Jonielle Smith ran 43.35 for a 6-point valued bronze.
Smith almost upset LSU’s Alexis Hobbs, who has the NCAA’s fastest time this year at 10.85, with a close second place finish tying her preliminary round mark of 11.13, only one hundredth of a second from Hobbs’ 11.12.
Senior Sashel Brown, former Alpha Academy hurdler, finished second in the women’s 400m hurdles with 56.86.
Junior Odean Skeen didn’t compete in his 100-meter final after qualifying as the third fastest seed behind the eventual winner, Tennessee’s Christian Coleman and LSU’s Jamaican-British athlete in Nathaneel Mitchel-Blake who both ran sub-10 times. Freshman Raheem Chambers managed to record 10.46 for 2 points in 7th.
The sensational Whyte failed to improve on her freshman record of 22.77 in the 200-meter final, yet still managed to secure 4 points for the Auburn women with a fifth-place finish of 23.13.
Aside from the Tigers exploits, Junior and former Texas A&M Aggie, and former Munro College standout Kemar Mowatt’s victory in the 400 meter hurdles for the University of Arkansas was accomplished through a personal best of 48.07.
Jareem Richards from Trinidad and Tobago got third place behind Coleman’s 19.98 and dethroned defending champion Mitchell-Blake’s 20.09, in the 200-meter final in 20.22.
Auburn Track & Field followed up a qualifying day full of promise with some encouraging signs as the men’s and women’s teams ended in 9th and 10th places, respectively.
