It’s been a hard-working season for both Shaunae Miller-Uibo and Steven Gardiner, and both are content to shut their seasons down and enjoy a much needed vacation.
Miller-Uibo said as much in an interview when she returned to The Bahamas, choosing not to go after a fourth straight Diamond League title in the women’s 200 meters (m), and Gardiner confirmed his plans on social media after also speaking on the matter when he returned home.
The Bahamas’ World and Olympic Champion said on Facebook: “What a year it’s been for me this season! Many blessing and dreams made reality! Thank you God, my family, friends and coaches, also everyone in the background who pushed me and supported me from the jump. I love you guys so much, the support has been crazy and I live for it. I’ll see you guys next season, better strong and a whole lot faster! Next Stop Vacation! #TheChosenOne #SkinnyLegend #adidas #WorldAndOlympicChampion”.
With just one race each on the Diamond League circuit this year, both in the 200m, it appeared unlikely that Miller-Uibo and Gardiner would attempt to qualify for the two-day Diamond League Final, the Weltklasse Zürich, set for September 8-9, at Letzigrund Stadium in Zürich, Switzerland.
The world’s best track and field athletes are set to gather at Letzigrund in two weeks’ time but Miller-Uibo and Gardiner won’t be among them. Both are still in position to qualify but they would have to take part in the regular season finale, the Allianz Memorial Van Damme in Brussels, Belgium, on Friday, and neither is set to do so.
Miller-Uibo has battled injuries all season long, and it really came to a head at the Tokyo Olympic Games when she attempted the double (running both the 200 and 400m). She ran six races in five days, and at one point, ran five races in three days including a heat of the women’s 400m and the final of the women’s 200m on the same day.
The Bahamian superstar track athlete said she was in immense pain but was focused on the task at hand. Miller-Uibo was forced to shut it down in the final of the women’s 200m, finishing eighth, and went on to win the Olympic title in the women’s 400m, recording a lifetime best 48.36 seconds, and winning by nearly a second over second place finisher Marileidy Paulino of the Dominican Republic.
It was a gutsy effort by Miller-Uibo, and it paid off, as she accomplished her goal. With the win, she is just the second woman in history to win back-to-back and multiple Olympic titles in the women’s 400m, following in the footsteps of one of her idols, Marie-José Pérec, of France.
On her return home, Miller-Uibo indicated what many had already speculated – that she is indeed done for 2021. In her only Diamond League race in 2021, she won the women’s 200m at the Meeting Herculis EBS 2021 inside the Stade Louis II in Monaco, on July 9. She is still seventh in the standings in the women’s 200m.
Miller-Uibo is a four-time Diamond League Champion – three straight in the women’s 200m, and the other in the women’s 400m in 2017. She won the 200m title in 2017, 2018 and again in 2019. The Diamond League season was canceled a year ago because of the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Gardiner has never won a Diamond League title but he is regarded as the world’s best over one lap having won the World and Olympic titles in back-to-back years.
His only Diamond League of the season was last Thursday, when he finished third in the men’s 200m at the Athletissima Diamond League Meet in Lausanne, Switzerland.
The only other Bahamians with Diamond League points this year are Devynne Charlton and Pedrya Seymour in the women’s 100m hurdles and Donald Thomas and Jamal Wilson in the men’s high jump.
Charlton sits in a three-way tie for seventh in the 100m hurdles with seven points, obtained from a second place finish at the 41st edition of the Golden Gala in Florence, Italy, on June 10. Seymour is in a three-way tie for 13th in the standings with four points, obtained from two seventh place finishes – one at the Golden Gala in Florence and the other at the 2021 Diamond League season debut, the Müller Grand Prix, in Gateshead, Great Britain, on May 23.
Thomas is in a three-way tie for fourth in the men’s high jump with 11 points, winning the competition in Gateshead on July 13, finishing seventh at the Golden Gala in Florence, and ending up eighth at the Wanda Doha Diamond League in Doha, Qatar, on May 28. Wilson is in a three-way tie for 13th with four points, finishing fifth in Doha.
The post Miller-Uibo’s Diamond League streak ends at three appeared first on The Nassau Guardian.
source https://thenassauguardian.com/miller-uibos-diamond-league-streak-ends-at-three/
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