Razorback track star Janeek Brown has accomplished some impressive feats in her young career.
Nothing, so far, outshines the boffo performance the Jamaican native delivered Saturday at the NCAA National Championships for women’s outdoor track and field in Austin, Texas.
Brown took first place in the 100-meter hurdle with a time of 12.40 — the second-best in NCAA history. Then she sprinted a 22.40 in the 200 meters, an Arkansas program record.*
Her combined time in the two events, 34.80, is the best 100mH/200m one-day combo in world history. For decades, no athlete had been able to touch the 100mH/200m one-day combo record set by the great Jackie Joyner-Kersee, who was voted by Sports Illustrated as the Greatest Female Athlete of All Time.
But one special Razorback changed all that.
Janeek Brown (pronounced Yan-eek), just a sophomore, now owns two of the top three such combo performances of all-time:
No. 1: 34:80 (12.40/22.40) Janeek Brown, 2019
No. 2: 35.01 (12.71/22.30) Jackie Joyner-Kersee, 1988
No. 3: 35.24 (12.57/22.67) Janeek Brown, 2019
No. 4: 35.25 (12.69/22.56) Jackie Joyner-Kersee, 1988
No. 5: 35.40 (12.54/22.86) Jessica Ennis-Hill, 2012
No. 6: 35.48 (13.13/22.35) Dafne Schippers, 2014
No. 7: 35.51 (12.49/23.02) Sally Pearson, 2012
No. 8: 35.63 (12.90/22.73) Jasmine Camacho-Quinn, 2018
[Source: ArkansasRazorbacks.com]
Arkansas Wins a National Title
Brown’s performances helped Arkansas build up 56 points, which put the Razorbacks in a tie with USC heading into the 4×400-meter relay, the final event of the night.
But USC’s runner ran into an Alabama runner and dropped the baton coming around a curve. So, the Trojans didn’t even finish the race. Below check out a stumble and fumble which, for once, helped Arkansas win a national championship at the 4:31 mark:
[Janeek Brown’s 12:40 100-meter hurdle run is at 2:40, 1/100th of a second behind the all-time NCAA No. 1 mark]
On that third leg, during the fateful collision, Springdale native Payton Chadwick kept Arkansas out of a potential disaster by evading the Alabama and USC runners. Chadwick swung wide, and handed off to the 400-meter All-American Campbell who split a 49.79 – the fastest leg of any relay in the final – to surge Arkansas from fourth-place to runner-up. The quartet ran the second-fastest time in program history. Their 3:25.89 time was a mere three-tenths (.30) of a second behind the National Champion relay team from Texas A&M.
In the end, the Razorbacks won its 45th national title in the UA’s track & field program history by scoring 64 points to No. 2 USC’s 57. This is the fourth team title in Arkansas outdoor track and field women’s history.
2019 NCAA Championship Final Team Scores
| PLACE | WOMEN [21 out of 21 scored] | SCORE | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Arkansas | 64 | |
| 2 | USC | 57 | |
| 3 | LSU | 43 | |
| 4 | Texas A&M | 38 | |
| 5 | Oregon | 34 | |
| 6 | Florida | 32 | |
| 7 | Alabama | 29 | |
| 8 | New Mexico | 27 | |
| 9 | Colorado | 24 | |
| 10 | Texas | 20 | |
| 10 | South Carolina | 20 | |
| 10 | Stanford | 20 | |
| 10 | Florida State | 20 |
Who is Janeek Brown?
This 21-year-old is a superstar in the making.
She has a strong chance of representing Jamaica in upcoming Olympic Games.
Here are some of the things Brown did as a freshman in 2018:
- First-Team All-American (60-meter hurdles, 100-meter hurdles)
- Finished fifth at the NCAA Outdoor Championships in the 100-meter hurdles running a school record time of 12.80 seconds
- Earned Second-Team All-American honors in the 4-x-100-meter relay
See updated times from her entire college career here.
Details on How the Razorbacks’ Glorious Day Under the Texan Sun Went Down
Arkansas’ national championship day started with the 4×100-meter relay of Tamara Kuykendall, Payton Chadwick, Janeek Brown, and Kiara Parker. They killed it, recording the second-fastest time in program history with a 42.79. That trails only the school record run they pieced together in the prelims of 42.65 in the semifinals.
Devin Clark turned in an All-American performance in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, finishing seventh in the final running 9:55.22. Clark ran with the front pack for most of the race before falling off the pace over the final 800-meters where she settled in for her All-American finish.
Kiara Parker ran a 11.02 in the 100-meter final,, breaking the program record in the 100-meters by shaving off two one-hundredths of a second from Jada Baylark’s 2018 record. Still, in such a packed field, it was good only fifth-place. LSU’s Sha’Carri Richardson took the event in a collegiate record time of 10.75.
Kethlin Campbell grabbed a fourth-place finish in the 400-meters with a brisk run of 51.09 seconds. The sophomore transfer from Duke capped her first season in Fayetteville having earned First-Team honors at both the NCAA Indoor Championships and the Outdoor NCAA Championships while moving herself to No. 4 all-time at Arkansas in the 400-meters with a lifetime-best of 51.03 and running key legs on both the indoor and outdoor mile relays.
***
– by Evin Demirel, author of “African-American Athletes in Arkansas,” and a Razorback Communications press release.
*Previously, the Arkansas program record in the 200 meter sprint was 22.41, owned by eight-time Olympian Veronica Campbell-Brown. Campbell-Brown twice won Olympic gold in the 200m.
