With good rest, Kristina Knott is finally getting into the groove again as the Filipino-American Olympic aspirant came up with one of her best showings in nine months.
Knott took a bronze medal in the women’s 200-meters’ Olympic Development race an hour after she almost set a new national record in the 100-meter dash at the 2021 Louisiana State University Alumni Gold Athletics meet in Baton Rouge.
The 5’6” Knott clocked 11.28 seconds Saturday (Sunday in Manila) in the women’s 100-meter dash.
Her clocking, which came close to a national record-breaking performance in August last year, was good for fifth place, behind Alelia Hobbs, who earned first place in 10.91 seconds.
“We took a week off and worked on things. So, now it’s time to rest and recover and get back to it,” Knott’s coach Rohsaan Griffin told the Manila Standard.
Knott came 13/100ths of a second from the Olympic Qualifying standard of 11.15 seconds.
Tamara Clark snatched the silver medal in 10.96 seconds, while Mikiah Brisco and Symone Mason shared the bronze in 11.02 seconds.
An hour after her 100-meter dash stint, Knott finished third place in the women’s 200-meters in 23.17 seconds.
Knott’s clocking was 16/100ths of a second off her time of 23.01 seconds she registered in winning the gold in the 2019 SEA Games.
“It was great anytime you run that close to both of your personal bests, which are the national records. It’s great,” added Griffin, who added Knott did not have enough time to rest in between the 100-meters and the 200-meters because the schedules were too close.
“She did run 11.28 which is 0.01 off of her personal best 11.27 and less than a hour later, because they moved to a rolling schedule, she ran 23.17 in the 200 for 0.16 off of her personal best in that event as well,” added Griffin.
“You have to remember the winners of her last two races were some of the fastest times in the world. And these girls have training partners that are just as fast as them or faster and we do this alone,” said Griffin.
Knott is set to fly to Europe to be in the Meeting International Citta Di Savona on May 13, the first scheduled European outdoor meet this summer.
Meanwhile, Eric Cray continued his search for an Olympic qualifying berth, finishing fifth place in 51.2 seconds in the men’s 400-meter hurdles of the Drake Relays, also last Saturday in Des Moines, Iowa.
Cray’s time is far from the OQS of 51.2 seconds. He was behind Brazil’s Alson Dos Santos, who won the gold in 48.15 seconds, which breached the Olympic Standard of 48.9 seconds.
Meanwhile, Fil-Moroccan Yacine Guermali surpassed the national mark in the men’s 5,000 meters during the Oregon Relays in the United States last Friday.
Guermali submitted a personal best of 13 minutes and 52.54 seconds in the invitational category, breaking the 13:58.43 national mark owned by Eduardo Buenavista at the 2002 Asian Games in Busan, South Korea.
This also went past Guermali’s personal best of 14:02.64 he set in Palo Alto, California in 2019. Guermali then finished 15th place behind eventual winner Cole Hocker (13:19.98)