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US Muslim Runner Breaks 16-Year-Old World Record
8-06-2019
American Muslim Olympian shattered a 16-year-old record in 400-meter hurdles at the USA Track and Field Outdoor Championships in Iowa Sunday, BBC reported.
“I’m just shocked,” Muhammad said after her win. “I’ve been kind of hitting that time in practice and my coach was like ‘there’s no way you can’t do it.’”
Performing on the final day of the US National Championships in Iowa, the 29-year-old runner clocked in a time of 52.20 seconds taking 0.17 seconds off the record set by Russian athlete Yuliya Pechonkina in 2003.
Muhammad won the gold medal in the 400-meter hurdles during the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. As a high school student, she won the 2007 IAAF World Youth title, according to her profile on Team USA’s website.
The 2016 Olympic champion suggested, however, that her newly-set record will soon be broken again.
“That 52 is going to get broke, if not by me, by the other women,” the runner said.
Muhammad was born February 7, 1990, in Jamaica, Queens, in New York City, to parents Nadirah and Askia Muhammad of a Muslim family.
Muhammad is only the second woman in the history of the 400m hurdles, after Sally Gunnell, to have won the Olympic title and broken the world record.
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