STEVEN GARDINER
#By BRENT STUBBS
#Senior Sports Reporter
#bstubbs@tribunemedia.net
#It was a big outdoor season opener for World and Olympic champion Steven Gardiner at the 17th Annual Spring Break Classic in Carolina, Puerto Rico.
#In his continued comeback this year from injury, Gardiner won the men’s 300 metres on Friday at the 2023 World Athletic Continental Tour – Challenger meeting in a quick time of 31.59 seconds, which was just shy of his Bahamian national record of 31.52.
#The 27-year-old native of Abaco is now ranked at number eight on the world’s 300m all-time list outdoors as he prepares to regain his 400m title at the World Athletics’ 2023 World Championships in Athletics in July in Budapest, Hungary.
#Gardiner, who missed the defence of his title at the 2019 World Championships in Eugene, Oregon due to tendon inflammation last summer, came off a pair of victories in the 300m indoors with a season’s best of 33.03.
#Trailing Gardiner in Puerto Rico was British Virgin Islands Olympic 500m hurdles fourth-place finisher Kyron McMaster, who ran 32.96 for second place, while Ian Gutiérrez Almedina completed the top three spots in 33.10.
ANTHAYA CHARLTON
#Charlton leads way in Orlando
#Fresh off her first National Collegiate Athletic Association’s Indoor Championships, Anthaya Charlton opened her outdoor campaign for the University of Kentucky at the Black & Gold Invite at the University of South Florida with a double dose of victory.
#On Friday, she leapt a personal best of 21-feet, 81/4-inches or 6.61 metres on her third attempt to break Sha’Keela Saunders’ UK freshman outdoor long jump record of 21-1 ¼ (6.43m) that she had previously established in 2014.
#Charlton came back on Saturday and had another spectacular showing in the women’s 100m where she ran a lifetime best of 11.38 for her second victory in a time that has placed her at number seven in the NCAA rankings so far this year.
#Paige Archer, a freshman at the University of Central Florida, ended up 10th in 11.88. On Friday, Archer, a graduate of Queen’s College, came through in 6th place in the women’s 200m in 24.52.
#Megan Moss, now in her junior year, picked up a fifth place in the women’s 400m in 54.35 right behind her team-mate Karimah Davis, who ran 53.74.
#Moss also ran the third leg on her Kentucky team of Karimah Davis, Dajour Miles and Tamila Fuller for the win in 3:36.37 for the fourth fastest NCAA time.
#Charlton also competed on the third leg of the other Kentucky team, including Mahogany Mobley, Reynei Wallace and Colleen Branch for fourth place in 3:44.32 for 12th in the rankings.
#Also at the meet, Stephan Farquharson, competing for Albany, was seventh in the men’s long jump on Friday with a leap of 23-10 (7.26m). Farquharson also anchored Albany men’s 4x100m relay team to fourth place in 40.85.
#And in the men’s 200m, Joel Johnson, representing SPIA Athletics, was 19th in 21.55.
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