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Jamaican Shericka Jackson just needs seven one-hundredths of a second and perfect conditions. It is not like she is asking anything impossible from the universe. Jackson is looking to run the 200-metre sprint in sub-21.34 seconds. She has been oh, so close this season.
The 29-year-old two-time defending world champion has run 21.41. This is the national record of Jamaica, which she ran at the 2023 Budapest World Athletics Championships two weeks ago. Her performance is tantalizingly close to the 1988 world record set by American Florence Griffith-Joyner or “Flo-Jo,” for short. Flo-Jo continues to also hold the world record in the 100m at 10.49 seconds.
🇯🇲Shericka Jackson says she's going for the 200m world record tomorrow!#BrusselsDL 📺: 9/8 2pm ET on Peacockpic.twitter.com/14eHDQ1kAC
— Travis Miller (@travismillerx13) September 7, 2023
Jackson has earned five Olympic medals between the Rio and Tokyo Games. She also owns 11 World Championships medals, four of them gold in distances from the 100m to the 400 and 4 x 400m relay. Jackson, wants the ultimate reward, a world record and she is going after it in the Brussels Diamond League meet. She will be running in Lane #6.
“I was so close to it, it would have taken a little wind (0.1 m/s) and I would have beaten it,” Said Jackson, when referring to her performance in Budapest.
“I’ve had a few days off since Zurich and physically I feel fresh, my head is ready. Tomorrow is supposed to be one of those good days.” If not, she can go again at the Prefontaine Classic happening in Eugene, OR the following week.
She also has her sites on the 400m record currently at 49.3, sometime in the near future.
