LSU sprinters Samantha Henry and Richard Thompson shined this past weekend at the Razorback Invitational with Henry running the world’s fastest 200-meter dash time and Thompson breaking his own 60-meter dash school record.
Henry’s time was a blistering 23.09 seconds, while Thompson was clocked at 6.62 seconds.
Henry, this past week’s Southeastern Conference female runner of the week, has already qualified for the NCAA Indoor Championships after recording a nation-leading 60-meter dash time of 7.26 seconds.
Henry, a sophomore, said she did not expect to run so fast this early in the season.
“I didn’t really execute the race as well as I probably should have,” Henry said. “I needed to be more aggressive hitting the second bank, and there were some other technical things I didn’t do that I will do later in the season … I think I could have run even faster.”
Thompson, a senior, broke his former record in his first race of the season. He set his previous record at the SEC Indoor Championships in 2007 with a time of 6.64 seconds.”I’ve been doing a lot of strength work and a lot of endurance work in my training without a lot of focus on the speed aspect of the race,” Thompson said. “Coach [Dennis] Shaver and I have a plan for running a lot faster later in the season as we get ready for the NCAA [championships].”
Shaver, on the other hand, was not as shocked.
“While it may surprise some people that they’re able to open up at those kinds of performance levels, if they were at practice every day, they would realize that they’ve prepared themselves much better over the last year,” Shaver said. “As a result, they’re really picking up about where they left off.”
Thompson tied Clemson junior sprinter Travis Padgett for the nation’s fastest 60-meter time this season and is the first LSU Tiger to automatically qualify for the NCAA Indoor Championships.
Thompson said he feels relaxed now that he has already qualified for the NCAA championships.
“Now that I have my ticket to the NCAA [championships], I can focus on improving the execution of my race,” Thompson said. “The times will come if I keep improving.”
—-Contact Robert Stewart at [email protected]