CORRECTIONS ABOUT THE VENUE AND LOCATION HAVE BEEN MADE
World Indoor champion Kendra Harrison of USA headlines the women’s 60m hurdles field for the 2021 New Balance Indoor Grand Prix – World Athletics Indoor Tour gold-level event at the NYC Parks’ Ocean Breeze Athletic, in Staten Island on Saturday (13).
Harrison, who won the world indoor title at the 2018 edition in Birmingham, owns a personal best and North American record matching time of 7.70 seconds, a performance that is the fourth-fastest all-time behind Sweden’s Susanna Kallur world record of 7.68, set in 2008.
Harrison holds the 100m hurdles world record at 12.20 seconds.
Former European champion Tiffany Porter leads the list of candidates down to challenge Harrison.
Porter opened her season with a 7.96 performance in the heats of the 60m hurdles at the American Track League Meeting on Jan. 24 and then followed that performance with a season’s best of 7.89 in the final.
World 400m hurdles silver medalist Sydney McLaughlin of the USA is also among the starters for Saturday’s race.
The 21-year-old has not raced in the 60m hurdles since 2015 when she was a high schooler, and she owns a personal best of 8.17. McLaughlin will be racing for the first time since the 2019 season.
Another American to follow in the race is Queen Claye, who will run her first indoor 60m hurdles race since the 2018 campaign. Claye has a lifetime best of 7.83, done during the 2016 season.
USA’s Kendell Williams and Gabrielle Cunningham, as well as Jamaican Jeanine Williams are also entered.
The 2021 New Balance Indoor Grand Prix will be aired live on NBC from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 13 and is the only gold-level U.S. stop on the World Athletics Indoor Tour. The series of the best indoor athletics events around the world awards overall tour winners $10,000 and a guaranteed spot at next edition of the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Belgrade 2022.
Now in its 26th year, the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix has played host to nine world records and 13 American records.
