AUSTIN (KXAN) — After he set the school record in Friday’s preliminaries at the Texas Relays, Texas hurdler Kendrick Smallwood finished the job with a gold medal in the 110-meter hurdles Saturday at Mike A. Myers Stadium.
Smallwood, a junior, captured the win in the 110 hurdles final with a wind-aided time of 13.07 seconds after running a wind-legal 13.35 Friday to count for the school record. He broke Keiron Smith’s record of 13.44, which he set at the NCAA Championships in 2011. A time is considered wind-aided if there’s an average tailwind of at least 2 meters/seconds (roughly 4.5 mph) and those times can’t be considered for records.
Smallwood was emotional after his win, saying through tears how grateful he was to even be on the track, let alone run one of the best races in his career after tearing his adductor muscle last year.
“I trusted God in this process,” he said. “Being able to come out here after a season filled with negative results and get something like that, it’s a blessing. I couldn’t even finish a race last year.”
Longhorn hurdlers had a nice day to cap the meet. On the women’s side, sophomore Akala Garrett won the 100 hurdles with a wind-aided time of 12.75 seconds to add a second gold medal in the meet. She won the 400 hurdles Friday with a meet record time of 55.49.
She considers herself better at the longer distance, but she’s been working hard at the 100-meter distance and said winning was “unexpected.” She beat Marcia Sey of Howard by a 1/100th of a second.
“I trusted myself at the end,” she said. “I knew I have to 400-meter strength, and even with a bad start, I knew I could run with them. More than ever, I proved I could do both.”
Sophomore Nina Ndubuisi won the women’s shot put with a heave of 59 feet, 2 inches, marking the sixth-best toss in program history.
Junior Kody Blackwood set a personal best in the 400 hurdles Friday, winning in 49.98 seconds. Sophomore Carleta Bernard won the women’s 100 meters in 11.30.
The Texas Relays also features professional athletes, and Olympic gold medalists from the Universirty of Texas and Austin competed. Valarie Allman, the defending Olympic champion in the women’s discus, set a meet record of 218-11 while a trio of former Longhorns teamed to win the women’s 4×400 relay. Rhasidat Adeleke, Julien Alfred and Ackelia Smith joined Dina Asher-Smith to win the race in 3:25.20, a meet record. Alfred is the defending Olympic champion in the 100 meters.
Gabby Thomas, who won the 200 meters at the 2024 Paris Olympics, ran a leg on the third-place 4×400 relay team. After she graduated from Harvard with a degree in neurobiology and global health, Thomas completed her master’s degree at UT in epidemiology. She lives in Austin.
Former Texas sprinter Marcellus Moore won the men’s 100 meters invitational with a wind-aided 9.97.
