Last year, Khalifa St. Fort won the Trinidad and Tobago Junior National Championships and has since gone pro in that time. This year, her Born 2 Do It training partner Sarah Wollaston, a junior at Somerset Academy who has been with the group for eight months, ran to victory with a time of 12.03s. Wollaston's best race came in the semifinals where she clocked a 12.03 into a -.6 m/s wind which converts to 11.97 in zero wind. Boldon says he is incredibly happy for her success.
"When she walked into my office and said she wanted Khalifa-type results and I thought wow she's short. Then I paused and thought she's the same height as my friend Shelly Ann Fraser Pryce who is arguably the best 100m sprinter ever. Now she's going to be in Poland. That's the sort of goals I want for all my athletes. The world stage. I won't be happy unless she runs 11.8 this year. She turned a big corner this weekend with these three rounds, finally trusting in a race the drive phase she's shown in practice."
St. Fort, the reigning champion, who also works out under the direction of T&T Olympian Ato Boldon, ran one round crossing the line in 11.53s. Boldon says he wanted to see where she was at after coming off of a hamstring injury.
"Her hamstring hasn't been right for two weeks
So we wanted to see where she was. She ran 11.53 easy into a 0.7wind and that was it. She's training for our Olympic Trials not for this. We know she's going to World Juniors."
Both athletes will compete in Bydgoscz, Poland for Trinidad and Tobago with St. Fort likely running the 1,2, and 4x100 while Wollaston leads off the relay. St. Fort was the silver medalist at the 2015 IAAF World Youth Championships.