Guyana's Athens 2004 Olympic gold medal hopeful Aliann Pompey erased the national 200-metre track record on Saturday when she returned 23.3 seconds, winning the 200-metre event at a Princeton University, USA meet.
Pompey, who set the 23.59 seconds national record for the distance at a meet in Fairfax Virginia, USA in 1997, told Stabroek Sport she recorded 23.3 seconds on Saturday at the Larry Ellis Invitational Meet, at Princeton.
The 400-metre 2002 Commonwealth gold medallist said she will be in action once again on Saturday in Brazil at an invitational meet, where she plans to contest both the 200- and 400-metre races.
Last weekend Pompey told Stabroek Sport she was faster than she has ever been, much stronger and felt ready to run.
Pompey, who clocked 51.34 seconds to win Commonwealth gold in Manchester, England nearly two years ago, said last weekend that she had made the qualifying time for this year's Olympics at a Grand Prix meet in Poland last year. She automatically met the standard for this year's Olympics in Athens and that took a lot of stress off her mind. "Instead of thinking about qualifying [for the Olympics], I can work on progressively getting faster. My desired result would be to peak in Athens."
Pompey said she was really excited with the progress of her training. "I'm doing more speed work, but not neglecting my strong points [strength and endurance] and I was hoping to have four meets under my belt at this point."
Pompey, who is a personal trainer, said she clocked one minute 29.08 seconds (1:29.08) in a 600-metre at the Iona Invitational local meet and 24.14 seconds for the 200-metre at the meet at Morgan State, Maryland, USA.
She said last weekend that her coach, Joe Ryan, was confident about the workouts she has been able to do and felt it should not be a problem for her to run a personal best time quite early in the season, if given the opportunity.
In an invited comment, Amateur Athletic Association of Guyana (AAA) Vice-President Neville Denny said: "I think it's excellent since she is a 400-metre person and I won't be surprised if she starts to run the 800-metre and do a lot of things.
"I had told her some time ago that she needs to start running some 23 seconds for the 200-metre because when you multiply it by two you will get 46 seconds for the 400-metre. She should have won the gold medal at the Pan American Games last year, but apparently she went to sleep in her blocks at the start and had to settle for bronze. But I'm looking forward to good things from her."
Pompey's coach could not be contacted yesterday for a comment.