Adaejah Hodge sprints to World Champs!

File photo of BVI sprinter Adaejah Hodge. (Photo Credit: Jamaica Gleaner)

Adaejah Hodge is a star and she will get the chance to prove it at the World Athletic Championships this summer.

Last Saturday, the 17-year-old speedster won the 200-metre dash at the Star Athletics Sprint Series in Florida. Her time of 22.60 seconds constitutes a national outdoor record and consolidates her 22.33 seconds indoor mark as a qualifier for the World Championships, which will take place in Budapest, Hungary in August.

On the OECS all-time list, Hodge trails only St Lucia’s Julien Alfred, who was a triple sprint gold medalist this past week at the NCAA Division 1 Championships and a Commonwealth Games 100-metre silver medalist last year. It vaults her above Sherry Fletcher of Grenada and Virgil Hodge of St. Kitts and Nevis, both former Pan American Games medalists.

At the same meet in Florida, another Virgin Islands star Rikkoi Brathwaite ran the fastest preliminary time of 9.93 seconds in the 100m.

He did not qualify for the World Championships but will get a chance at the Central American and Caribbean Games Games in San Salvador.

The San Salvador 2023 Games will see some of the big names in sports contesting events for ranking points and qualifiers for the Pan American Games to be held in Santiago, Chile in October this year and the Olympic Games in Paris, France next summer.

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