Roshawn Clarke’s World U-20 400m hurdles record ratified
Jamaican Roshawn Clarke’s world Under-20 400m hurdles record 47.34 seconds, set earlier this year, has been ratified by World Athletics, it was announced on Wednesday on its website.
Clarke, who turned 19 in July this year, also set the Jamaican national record in the process when he placed second in his semi-final at the World Athletics Championships at the National Athletics Center in Budapest, Hungary, in August.
The men’s Under-20 400m hurdles record was one of two that were ratified by World Athletics as Kenya’s Faith Kipyegon’s world record 4:07.64 seconds in the women’s mile set in Monaco in July was also ratified.
Clarke, the silver medallist from the World Under-20 Championships in 2022, had previously equalled the World Under-20 record 47.85 seconds when he won the Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association (JAAA) national championships on July 1, and broke the Jamaican Under-20 record 48.81 seconds set by Jaheel Hyde in 2016.
His 47.34 seconds also broke the Jamaican national record 47.60 seconds set by Winthrop Graham in 1993, 11 years before Clarke was born and that time would have won at most previous World Championships.
Three Jamaican national records were set in Hungary as Shericka Jackson lowered her own women’s 200m record to 21.41 seconds, beating the 21.45 seconds she had set in 2022 when she won the World Championships at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon, and Adelle Tracey broke the women’s 1,500m record when she ran 3:58.77 seconds in the semi-finals, under the 28-year-old mark of 4:01.84 seconds set by Yvonne Graham in 1995 in Monaco by more than three seconds.
Despite finishing a disappointing fourth in the finals at the World championships, Clarke “enjoyed a phenomenal breakthrough season in 2023, culminating with a world U20 record and a fourth-place finish at the World Athletics Championships Budapest 23,” the World Athletics site said.
The former Camperdown High runner, who was also part of the team that ran in the final of the men’s 4x400m relay at the World Championships, started the 2023 season with a personal best 49.35 seconds, which he set while winning the World Under-20 silver medal, lowering his personal best six times in the season.
