PRIMED to make her Olympic debut, Fil-Am sprinter Kristina Knott tries to make the most out of the opportunity as she goes into action in the women’s 200-meter dash this morning at the Japan National Stadium in Tokyo.
“I am happy to be here. But I am not going to settle for that. I want to make it through the rounds when I compete. We have a job to do. It’s championship time,” Knott said in a recent online interview organized by the Philippine Athletics Track and Field Association.
She is keen on surpassing her national record of 23.01 seconds set when she ruled the women’s 200-meter run in the 30th Southeast Asian Games at the New Athletic Stadium in Capas, Tarlac two years ago.
“Yes, we want to break the old record and go under 23 seconds,” said the former University of Miami Florida track star, who was drawn in the seventh and last heat of six runners scheduled at 11: 18 am. (10:18 a.m. in Manila).
Racing with her is American Jenna Prandini, a two-timeUS women’s 200-meter champion and Rio Olympic Games veteran, who is No. 13 in the World Athletic rankings and has a personal best of 21.89 seconds in the event.
Two-time national sprint champion Jamile Samuel of the Netherlands has the second-best time in the heat of 22.37 seconds, with the top three runners in the heats advancing to the semifinals in the afternoon.
“We have a good lane, No. 4,” noted her coach, Rohsaan Griffin, yesterday.
While she may have the slowest best time in the group, Knott hinted at giving her rivals a run for their money, based on the vastlyimproved times she was setting since she began her pre-Olympic practice in Japan in the city of Nagasaki.
“The clock is inspiring me right now. I’ve been running these times and I said whoa, we might do some crazy here. We are ‘PRing’ (setting personal records) in practice. It is boosting my confidence just to know what I can do in practice, and now everything is starting to align,” she said.
“I am doing in practice stuff I wasn’t doing before. I don’t know what the 200 is going to look like, but it’s going to be nice, though. That’s all I got to say,” Knott added.
