Home|Sports|The Nassau Guardian’s Senior Female Athlete of the YearSports
Sheldon LongleySend an emailDecember 30, 2022 153 4 minute readFacebookTwitterLinkedInShare via Email
The year 2022 was good to Shaunae Miller-Uibo as she was able to capture the final piece of her global collection – the World Athletics World Outdoor Championship title in the women’s 400 meters (m). She was able to add that to her long list of achievements in that discipline which can make her arguably one of the best female athletes in the history of the one-lap race.
That title came months after she was able to capture the World Athletics Indoor Championships women’s 400m crown. In Freeport, Grand Bahama, she was able to capture her first North American, Central American and Caribbean (NACAC) Track and Field Championships gold medal, doing it in a new championship record.
It is no surprise that she was also able to be unanimously voted as The Nassau Guardian’s Senior Female Athlete of the Year. This is her sixth time capturing this honor.
Running at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon, back in July, Miller-Uibo powered her way to clock a world-leading time at that time of 49.11 seconds to win her first world outdoor championship title in the quarter-mile race. Marileidy Paulino, of the Dominican Republic, took the silver medal in 49.60 seconds. Sada Williams, of Barbados, held on for the bronze, finishing in a national record time of 49.75 seconds.
Miller-Uibo is just the second woman, and second athlete ever, to win all the global titles in an individual event in athletics, joining former great Russian pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva in accomplishing that feat.
Back in March, the sprint sensation clocked 50.31 seconds at the Štark Arena in Belgrade, Serbia, to win the women’s 400m title at the World Athletics Indoor Championships. That time was just a hundredth of a second off the world lead, and a tenth of a second off her personal best, national and area record time. She now owns the two fastest times in the NACAC region in the women’s 400m indoors.
She is the only Bahamian to win an individual indoors and outdoors world title.
In Grand Bahama in August, Miller-Uibo put on a show in front of the home crowd in Freeport when she clocked 49.40 seconds to beat the previous championship record of 50.82 seconds.
Williams ran 49.86 seconds for the silver medal while Jamaican Stephenie Ann-
McPherson won the bronze medal, finishing in 50.36 seconds.
Next year, the Bahamian will be focusing on the 200m sprint race but will still dabble in the 400m, she said.
Jonquel ‘JJ’ Jones had what some may call a down year, by her standards, but she was still able to help lead the Connecticut Sun to the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) Finals this past season. They ended up falling 3-1 to the Las Vegas Aces in the best-of-five-championship series.
The Grand Bahamian led her team in the finals in scoring with 16 points per game, shooting 56.5 percent from the field. She averaged 8.3 rebounds per game.
The Sun finished the regular season with a 25-11 win/loss record, ending up second in the Eastern Conference of the WNBA.
For her efforts in the regular season, Jones was able to earn All-WNBA second team and All-Defensive second team honors. The center finished seventh in the Most Valuable Player (MVP) voting.
Jones, 28, averaged 14.6 points per game on 51.3 percent shooting from the field this past season. She also had 8.6 boards per game to go with 1.2 blocks per game and 1.1 steals per game. She averaged the most points and rebounds for her team.
Jones was preparing to play in Russia for UMMC Ekaterinburg after the WNBA season but had to flee the country due to the Russian war against Ukraine. Instead, she went to play for CBK Mersin Yanisehir Belediyesi in Turkey. In the nine games she appeared in, she averaged 18.9 points and 12.4 rebounds in 28.6 minutes per game. They lead the league, which is ongoing, with an 11-1 win/loss record.
Having lost for the second time in the WNBA Finals, Jones and the Sun will look to win it all in 2023.
Devynne Charlton had a long season but it was worth it for her. She had arguably one of the best seasons in her senior career in the hurdles.
Charlton bagged two silver medals in the hurdles at two major meets this year. She won those silvers in the women’s 60m hurdles at the World Indoor Championships in Belgrade, Serbia, and the women’s 100m hurdles at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England. The hurdler went on to win a bronze medal at the NACAC Track and Field Championship before running in the final of the Wanda Diamond League.
Charlton got her first global meet, the World Indoor Championships, out of the way in great form when she clocked a new national record time of 7.81 seconds in the final. She ran that time in the semifinals also. France’s Cyrena Samba-Mayela won the gold with a national record time of 7.78 seconds.
Charlton had a record-setting performance in Eugene when she clocked a blistering time of 12.46 seconds in the 100m hurdles semifinals for a new national record. She came back and finished seventh in the final with a time of 12.53 seconds. In the semifinals, Nigerian Tobi Amusan set the world record at 12.12 seconds.
At the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, Charlton became the first Bahamian to win a medal in a hurdles at that event when she clocked 12.58 seconds to win the silver medal. Amusan won in a games record time of 12.30 seconds. Cindy Sember, of Great Britain, won the bronze medal in 12.59 seconds.
At home at the NACAC Championships, Charlton clocked 12.71 seconds to win the bronze medal. American Alaysha Johnson crossed the finish line first in a time of 12.62 seconds. Jamaican Megan Tapper won the silver medal in 12.68 seconds.
In the Wanda Diamond League Final in September, the Weltklasse Zürich at Letzigrund Stadium in Zürich, Switzerland, Charlton settled for fifth in the 100m hurdles with a time of 12.66 seconds. That race was won by Amusan who clocked 12.29 seconds.
Charlton ran three of the fastest times of her life in the 100m hurdles this past season including the national record of 12.46 seconds. She owns the five fastest times ever ran by a Bahamian, and nine of the top 10, in that event.
Charlton will look to run even faster in 2023.
Sprinter Anthonique Strachan was fourth in the voting for The Nassau Guardian’s Senior Female Athlete of the Year honor with 35 points and TyNia Gaither finished fifth with 34 points.