Janet Amponsah
Ghana’s Janet Amponsah wrote her name in the history books after producing a massive 200m outdoor personal best of 23.05 secs (+1.0) to win the Western Texas A&M University Open in Texas on Saturday 12th April.
By this feat, the Ghanaian athlete extended her #1 African ranking in the event.
Amponsah, who is currently schooling at Western Texas College on a Ghana Athletics Association-sourced academic scholarship, blitzed to her personal new best followed by Strickland Libby of West Texas A&M with 23.7 and Marissa, also of Western Texas College in a time of 24.35.
The last time a Ghanaian woman ran faster than Janet’s time was in 2006. Sprinter Vida Nsiah holds the current national 200m record of 22.80 (+0.9 m/s) which she set at a meet in Clemson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clemson,_South_Carolina , USA on 17th May, 1997.
Meanwhile, Janet followed her dominant display in the 200m event by running an equally fast time of 11.31secs (+2.1) to win the 100m.
The former Kumasi Girls Secondary School student has been in top form this season, having set a new PB of 23. 36 secs in March when she won the 200m event at the US JUCO Championships earlier this year.
She leads Ghana’s qualifiers to the 2014 Commonwealth Games and the African Athletics Championships.
It will be recalled that Janet was part of the six young athletes who won seven gold medals and national titles, five silver medals, and one bronze medal at the prestigious JUCO Championships that ended on Saturday 8th March, 2014.
She won gold in the women’s 200m race in a new national indoor record of 23.81secs after securing a silver medal in the 60m final, where she ran the same time as the winner, but lost out on photo-finish. She claimed a third medal as part of her school’s 4x400m silver medal team.
Amponsah’s time of 23.81 secs broke Monica Twum’s 13-year old record set as a student at Texas Christian University.
From The Sports Desk
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