Salmon confidence boosted by Boston heroics

Shiann Salmon, the 2018 World Under-20 400m hurdles silver-medal winner, had her confidence boosted by a win over an odd distance in Boston on May 23.

Salmon won the rarely run 200m hurdles at the adidas Boost Boston Games in the fastest time ever by a Jamaican: 24.86 seconds. The win gave her a victory over American star Shamier Little, but Salmon says there's another reason why she feels good about the 2021 season.

Five days after Boston, Salmon said, “I wouldn't say beating her made my confidence go up, but it's just like doing good overall at that distance because to go sub-25 in a 200m hurdles knowing that I wasn't one who was experienced in running in that event, it actually boosted my confidence anyway.”

Running in the inside lane of the straight course, Salmon edged the 2015 World Championships silver medallist, who was timed in 24.91s and 2019 Central American and Caribbean Games champion Ronda Whyte, who previously held the Jamaican best in the rarely run discipline at 26.19s. Whyte finished in 25.71s.

Technically, the two races are poles apart.

“The 200 is a totally different rhythm and stride pattern and everything, so I couldn't really use the 200m hurdles to predict my 400m hurdles,” the former Hydel High School and GC Foster College star explained. However, Salmon was ready when she settled into the blocks.

“I knew I'm fit enough to run a very aggressive 200m, but everybody else was like in a big panic that I'd go out there too hard and Shamier would pass by and other people would pass by,” she said.

She planned to use a stride pattern of eight steps between hurdles, but in the race, she switched.

“I guess the adrenaline and just the competitiveness of me competing with these people, I was able to get seven so comfortably, stay on the correct leg, which is the preferred leg, the left leg, and everybody else alternating, so I actually stayed left up until that last hurdle, and that's when I stumbled because I ended up getting eight by that last hurdle, which caught me off guard.”

Winning in Boston confirmed to Salmon that her training is on target, but she is taking nothing for granted.

“I know I'm in a great shape, definitely, 100 per cent, but, you know, you can be in very good shape and not apply yourself when a race comes along,” she said. “So it's more of me learning the rhythm of the event. I'm now getting technical training and specific training as to how I'm supposed to be running this. So it's more like me transitioning into that running pattern and strides.”

Salmon will take a 2021 best of 56.02s into her last 400m hurdles race, today in Florida, before the National Senior Championships in Kingston.

sports@gleanerjm.com