USA’s Athing Mu sped to a 50.52 record clocking, to win the 400m at the Charlie Thomas Invitational in College Station

Two of the world’s most talented teenagers produced stand-out performances on either side of the Atlantic on Saturday.

USA’s Athing Mu sped to a 50.52 clocking to win the 400m at the Charlie Thomas Invitational in College Station. If ratified, the 18-year-old’s time would improve the official world U20 indoor record of 50.82 set by 2012 Olympic champion Sanya Richards-Ross.

The fastest indoor time ever achieved by an U20 sprinter, however, remains the 50.36 clocking set by Sydney McLaughlin in 2018; her time could not be ratified as a world U20 indoor record. Mu now moves to 20th on the senior world all-time indoor list and fourth on the senior US list.

In recent weeks, Mu has been lighting up indoor tracks on the US collegiate circuit. She clocked a North American U20 indoor record of 2:01.07 for 800m in January and followed it one week later with a world-leading 1:25.80 run over 600m. Last week she ran a 50.5 anchor leg in a 4x400m in Lubbock, hinting at her potential for the individual 400m.

Jamaica’s Charokee Young finished a distant second to Mu in College Station, running 51.93.

The men’s 400m in College Station also produced some swift times with Noah Williams setting an outright PB of 45.47 to win from Sean Burrell (45.57). St Lucia’s Julien Alfred won the women’s 60m in 7.17, having clocked 7.15 in the heats.

Adrian Piperi, the 2015 world U18 shot put champion, produced a big PB of 21.74m to move up to 11th on the US indoor all-time list.

European U20 long jump champion Larissa Iapichino got her 2021 campaign off to a flying start, quite literally, at the Italian U23/U20 Championships in Ancona on Saturday (6).

The 18-year-old leapt an indoor PB of 6.53m in the second round, beating her own national U20 indoor record, and then improved to 6.70m in round three. She went even farther in the fifth round, leaping 6.75m.

Her winning mark moves her up to fourth on the world U20 indoor all-time list and is just 13 centimeters shy of the world U20 indoor record set by Heike Drechsler back in 1983.

posted Monday February 8th
by World Athletics