Personal best tells Knight she’s making progress

Eleven days after she took the runner-up slot at the National Senior and Junior Championships, Andrenette Knight lowered her 400 metres hurdles personal best to 53.39 seconds. Knight believes the new mark is proof that her training has her on the road to success at next month’s World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary.

The new benchmark came in Székesfehérvár, Hungary, at the Gyulai Istvan Memorial meet. Speaking on Wednesday, the delighted Knight said, “I’m happy with how everything is going.”

She arrived at the national championships with a yearly best of 54.20, lowered that to 53.76 to place second to compatriot Janieve Russell in Kingston, with 2019 World bronze medal winner Rushell Clayton a close third. Russell was second to her at the Gyulai Istvan Memorial but turned the tables days later in Luzern, Switzerland, 53.65 to 54.13.

Knight says those domestic battles have spurred her on.

“You really don’t know what’s going to happen in any given race, and it really just tells me that every single time I line up with them, I have to be ready to go and to go for it,” she reflected on her encounters with Russell, Clayton and national championships 4th placer Shiann Salmon.

The modest 26-year-old is confident that her preparation will serve her well in Budapest.

“What we have been working on is really getting to my seventh hurdle in a certain time, getting my touchdown to be a certain time,” she revealed of her training programme, which is directed by American coach Lawrence ‘Boogie’ Johnson. “I’ve had a personal best, but I haven’t done the thing exactly what he wants me to do as yet,” she confessed.

Knight and Johnson are working to a plan in the time between now and the World Championships.

“It’s just getting my speed to where it needs to be and really trying to execute that way that he wants me to, and I know that if I do that, I’ll be fine in Budapest,” Knight said.

With superstar Sydney McLaughlin leaving the hurdles alone this year, there’s a chance a new name could be on the podium and all three Jamaicans, a pair of fast Ukrainians and in form American Shamier Little are all in the running. Knight knows what will make the difference.

“It’s just going to come down to who executes the better race on the day, who can block out the noise and do what they’re supposed to do, and, on that day, who makes less mistakes,” she said. “So, it really comes down to that, and if you can come back after the rounds,” Knight concluded.

Her new personal best placed her fifth on the Jamaican all-time list with three of those ahead of her – Melaine Walker, Kaliese Spencer and Deon Hemmings – safely under the 53 second barrier. Asked if she might be next, she replied: “I hope so.”