Seven Kentucky women qualify for Track and Field Championships

The NCAA Women’s Track and Field East Preliminaries took place on Saturday in Jacksonville, Florida and seven women from Kentucky earned the right to advance to the NCAA Division I Track and Field Championships. Three of them, Anthaya Charlton, Karimah Davis, and Masai Russell qualified for multiple events.

Kentucky’s 4 x 100-meter relay team, which features the aforementioned three athletes plus Victoria Perrow, earned an automatic qualifier by posting a time of 42.99 seconds. Just to put that in lamen terms, that means these ladies averaged 20.8 miles per hour during their relay of roughly a quarter mile.

That, in my expert analysis, is fast.

Anthaya Charlton also competed and advanced in the individual 100-meter dash. Her time of 11.08 seconds secured 2nd place in her heat and 6th overall in the prelim.

Masai Russell earned two additional automatic qualifications in individual hurdles of both the 100-meter and 400-meter variety. For me, running a quarter mile while jumping over multiple 30-inch barriers seems like the most difficult thing on the planet. Props to Russell for somehow accomplishing that feat in just 56.3 seconds and winning her heat.

Russell, who set the collegiate record for this event back in April, won her 100-meter hurdle heat with a blazing time of 12.58 seconds.

Karimah Davis qualified her two additional spots in the 200-meter individual race, where she posted a time of 22.96 seconds (good for third in her heat), and the 4 x 400-meter relay. She and her teammates in the relay, Megan Moss, Tamiia Fuller, and Dajour Miles, posted a time of 3:32.88 was good for 7th overall in the prelim.

The NCAA National Championship will be held in Austin, Texas next month. Go luck to the Track ‘Cats.

#NCAATF east Prelims women’s 4x400m relay
7. Karimah Davis, Megan Moss, Tamiia Fuller, Dajour Miles: 3:32.88Q pic.twitter.com/rT9j8GIbIj

— UK Track & Field (@KentuckyTrack) May 28, 2023