IAAF World Youth Championships | July 15 - 19, 2015 | Cali, Columbia
New Jersey's very own track star Sydney McLaughlin earned herself a world championship gold medal on Saturday in Cali, Columbia. She finished off her undefeated season in the 400 meter hurdles with a sizzling 55.94! That was good enough for a Championship Meet Record. Her personal best going into the night still holds strong at 55.28, only .08 off the high school national record of 55.20. Sydney now has a career record of 17 wins and 1 second place finish in the event (which was to a college athlete as a high school freshmen)!
The Garden State has a great presence on team USA. Nickolette Dunbar threw 56-11.5, using the lighter 3kg shot put, leading her preliminary group with the mark. She came back in the finals to place 6th with 55-1.5.
| You can check out how Team USA performed with MileSplit's National Coverage
In the boys long jump Justes Nance of Blair Academy jumped to 3rd in the preliminaries with an impressive personal best of 25-0! During the finals he marked in at 23-9 to take 9th overall.
Corey Poole (pictured above left) of East Orange made it to the semi-finals in the boys 400 meter hurdles with a time of 52.98 on Wednesday. He came back on Thursday to place 8th in the semis with an even better performance of 52.88. If you're wondering where the above picture came from, the Youth Worlds meet runs a mixed gender 4x400 meter relay, Team USA finished first in their preliminary heat running 3:22.65.
You might recognize her as well! Columbia HS coach Lisa Morgan was selected as head coach for Team USA at the World Youth Championships.