For long jumper Sawyers, Ultimate payday gives her a chance to train ... and a new sewing machine

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — The athlete who perhaps best summed up the meaning of track’s new experiment, the Ultimate Championship , isn’t an ultimate champion herself.

British long jumper Jazmin Sawyers took second in her event over the weekend, so she did not get a medal (nobody did) or a trophy (only winners did) or the first prize, $150,000.

She did get $75,000, though, which for the majority of track and field athletes, can make a huge difference.

“I look at the next year now, and I don’t need to necessarily worry about being able to train full-time,” Sawyers said.

A 32-year-old with five national titles in Britain, Sawyers said she came into the season ranked in the 30s and climbed her way into the top 10.

Injuries suffered by the two top-ranked jumpers, Tara Davis-Woodhall and Malaika Mihambo, landed Sawyers in the Ultimate Championships and she took advantage.

She said she’s aware that $150,000 or $75,000 isn’t life-changing for every athlete here. But for some, it is. Suddenly, Sawyers can see a pathway to making her third Olympics.

“I will buy myself something. I’m going to upgrade my sewing machine,” she said. “Aside from that, I’m excited to know there won’t be a scramble to be able to train the way I want to be able to train for the next two years.”

About this time in the last Olympic cycle, it seemed a matter of when, not if, Florence Griffith Joyner’s decades-old world records of 10.49 in the 100 and 21.34 in the 200 would fall.

Then, injuries to two Jamaican sprinters, Elaine Thompson-Herah and Shericka Jackson, put that talk on hold and led to a reshuffling of the deck in women’s sprints.

Coming out on top: Melissa Jefferson-Wooden , who added the 100 and 200 titles at Ultimate to her world championships from last year. More impressive were her times. She ran 10.62 in the 100 — where she is the fourth woman ever in that event — then followed it up with a 21.47 in the 200 that even she did not expect.

The 21.47 made her the third-fastest woman ever in that event behind Flo Jo and Jackson.

It was the fastest time ever run into a headwind and, maybe most impressively, it came 24 hours after her 100-meter win. She’ll have far more rest between events when she hits the track for her next shot at the 100-200 double, next year at worlds in Beijing.

“It’s insane,” she said. “I can’t wait to go back and look at the race. It’s like one of those things where, you don’t know until you know.”

When Usain Bolt was on the track, the drama almost always had to do with whether he would set a record, not who would win the race.

For years, the mystery that was absent was a price worth paying because of the show the Jamaican great put on before, during and after all those sprints.

He’s nearing 10 years in retirement and now watching a sport where, in so many cases, nobody knows who’s going to win the sprints.

As a sign of how long it's been, Bolt, who was in Budapest for the meet, was cheering wildly for Kenny Bednarek as Bednarek cruised to his 200-meter victory Sunday night in 19.52. Afterward, Bolt caught up with Bednarek to offer congratulations.

“It was the first time I'd actually met him in person,” said the 27-year-old Bednarek, who is 13 years younger than Bolt. “I've looked up to him since I was a kid.”

Who will Bolt congratulate next? Hard to know.

Over the last three years, Noah Lyles (Paris), Oblique Seville (Tokyo) and Bednarek (Budapest) have won the biggest 100-meter races of the year. The 200s have gone to Letsile Tebogo (Paris), Lyles (Tokyo) and Bednarek.

“To see different people winning makes it more exciting,” Bolt said. “Now, you show up on the day and you don’t know who’s going to win. I think that’s good for the sport.”

Before a teenager named Sydney McLaughlin started setting world records and winning everything there was to win in the 400-meter hurdles, Dalilah Muhammad gave her and everyone else a preview of what was possible.

Muhammad, the American who broke a 16-year-old world record in 2019 that eventually led to McLaughlin's lowering of the mark to 50.37 over the next five years, bid adieu to competitive track Sunday night.

Muhammad finished fourth with a season-best time of 53.11, which made for a $25,000 payday, though that was hardly the point of the evening for her.

“I think just being one of the leaders in this event and pushing what was possible in the event,” Muhammad said when asked what she wants to be remembered for.

Though she had been a four-time All-American at USC from 2009-12, she was almost an afterthought by the time she won the Olympics in Rio in 2016.

She set the record in 2019 (52.20), then lowered it with a .07-second win over McLaughlin at world championships three months later. That helped light a fire under McLaughlin, who switched coaches, to Bobby Kersee, knowing if she couldn’t handle Muhammad, she’d never be the best.

McLaughlin, now married and with a 2-month-old daughter, has lowered the record that once belonged to her rival six times since those world championships. Muhammad won a silver medal behind McLaughlin at the Tokyo Games, a bronze at worlds in 2022 and leaves as one of the greats of the event.

“I think you had that motivation knowing this high school kid is coming into college and she’s going to be the one to beat,” Muhammad said. “I’m just truly honored to be a person who’s been part of her journey.”

Among the biggest tests for the future of the Ultimate Championship is whether World Athletics will get as much buy-in from athletes when it holds the event around two months after the LA Olympics in 2028.

World Athletics President Sebastian Coe said he's more impressed with the deep talent pool across events in track and field than he is concerned over the sport's awkward calendar.

American pole vaulter Sandi Morris, who pocketed $150,000 for her win over the weekend, might have summed it up best for a sport where the majority of athletes still need paychecks and sponsors to pay for their training.

“I mean, they put the stakes out there and athletes are going to compete,” she said.

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