Without a doubt, one of the best athletes to have ever lived is Usain Bolt. In addition to his eight Olympic gold medals for his home country of Jamaica, the 38-year-old also owns the world records in the 100 and 200-meter sprints and the fastest time in the 4 × 100-meter relay with Yohan Blake, Michael Frater, and Nesta Carter. Bolt captivated the attention of sports fans across the globe in May 2008 when he ran a new 100-meter world record in 9.72 seconds in the Reebok Grand Prix in New York. But his best was still to come. A few months later, at the Summer Olympics in Beijing, he broke his own record, becoming a superstar by running an amazingincredible time of 9.69s.
While many believed that this record would stand tall for an era, Bolt outdid himself at the 2009 World Athletics Championships in Berlin, smashing his record time with a run of 9.58 seconds – a record that has now stood tall for 15 years with no one coming close to challenging it.
But in April 2017, it seemed that the 12-year-old Jamaican schoolgirl Brianna Lyston was the one the world had finally found to challenge Bolt in international competition. This is due to the sprinter’s astounding time of 23.72 at the Boys and Girls Championships, which broke the 200-meter under-13 record. To put the feat in perspective, that is only short of Bolt’s 19.19 200-meter record and extremely near to Florence Griffith-Joyner’s senior-level record of 21.34 from the 1988 Olympics. In the meantime, the youthful prodigy won the 100-meter final in an astonishingly fast time of 11.86 seconds.
Did Brianna Lyston ever achieve greatness? Seven years have passed since Lyston’s performance drew the world’s notice due to its resemblance to those of elite runners such as Bolt. Her record-breaking feat in 2017 is the only youth performance that is available, however she maintained her strong form at the CARIFTA U17 Games in George Town.
Lyston achieved gold in the 4x100m relay alongside Crystal Shaw, Glacian Loutin and Kay-Lagay Clarke with a time of 45.63, while she also achieved silver in the 200m sprint with a time of 23.53 – fractionally missing out on a victory to Trinidad and Tobago’s Shaniqua Bascombe who crossed the finish line at 23.36.
The speedy sprinter also reaped the seeds of success at the U20 CARIFTA Games in Kingston, achieving gold in the 4x100m relay and the 200m events, topping her time at the U17 event by crossing the line at 23.16. Lyston also achieved victory at the World U20 Championships the very same year, bagging a gold medal in the 200m sprint with a time of 22.65.
In 2024, Lyston achieved a new record in the 100 meters of the SEC Championship in Gainsville, Florida, clocking in at a scorching 10.91 seconds, making her the fastest woman in Jamaica. She also ran a personal best 200-meter time of 22.31 in the same competition.
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