Four female high-school students set a new world U20* record in the Virginia Beach Sports Center during the 2021 VA Showcase Championship. Held over the weekend of Jan. 14 – 17, the facility's first event of 2021 is also the known as the largest indoor track meet in the nation. What a way to kick of the new year! Check out the video here.
As reported by FLOTRACK on their website:
Less than 24 hours after one of the greatest assembled indoor 800-meter races in high school history, a group of four high school-aged girls from Wisconsin, Texas, Maryland and Rhode Island set a new World U20 record on Sunday at The VA Showcase, posting a remarkable performance of 8:37.20 in the 4x800. The team consisted of Stevens Point's (WI) Roisin Willis, Marble Falls' (TX) Bailey Goggans, Mount De Sales' (MD) Juliette Whittaker, and Moses Brown's (RI) Sophia Gorriaran. Each member of the team ran on Saturday, too.
In becoming the unofficial world junior leaders in the relay -- World Athletics does not officially recognize the 4x800 -- the American contingent surpassed a nearly 30-year record last set by a group of Jamaican girls at the Penn Relays in 1991. That group went 8:37.71. Just a day earlier, Whittaker set the third-fastest high school indoor 800m time in history, producing an astounding time of 2:02.07. That time also qualified the 17-year-old for the U.S. Olympic Trials. Gorriaran was second on Saturday in a time of 2:03.96, while Willis was third in 2:04.31 and Goggans was fourth in 2:07.84.
*under the age of 20
