Britton Wilson earns National Athlete of the Week accolade

NEW ORLEANS – Razorback junior Britton Wilson defended her pair of unprecedented SEC Outdoor titles in dramatic fashion with a pair of collegiate records and world-leading times to earn USTFCCCA’s National Athlete of the Week honor.

Winning times of 49.13 in the 400m and 53.28 in the 400m hurdles produced the world’s best ever one-day double for those events.

Wilson is the 2023 world leader in both events and has the top three times run this outdoor season in the 400m (49.13, 49.40, 49.51) and 400m hurdles (53.23, 53.28, 53.76). Four of those six times were produced on the same weekend during the SEC meet.

Wilson duplicated SEC Outdoor victories in the 400m and 400m hurdles in Baton Rouge as LSU hosted the conference meet. In 2022, she became the first female to achieve the unique double win, and the first athlete in the SEC to accomplish it since 1966, when Auburn’s David Adkins became the lone individual to have previously completed the task.

Entering the meet, Wilson was the top seed in both events with a collegiate record and world-leading 49.51 in the 400m and the third best collegiate time in history with a world-leading 53.23, both marks achieved on consecutive days at Florida’s Tom Jones Memorial meet in April.

Wilson clocked 53.76 in the prelims of the 400m hurdles on Thursday, eclipsing the Bernie Moore Stadium record of 54.70 set in 2016 by Olympian Ashley Spencer.

Running the 400m prelims on Friday, Wilson amazed with a collegiate record of 49.40. That mark bettered the SEC meet record of 49.84 set in 2021 by Texas A&M’s Athing Mu as well as the facility record of 49.57, a collegiate record at the time, by Courtney Okolo of Texas in 2016.

Saturday’s final in the 400m delivered another collegiate record as Wilson won in 49.13, making her the fourth fastest American ever with the ninth best performance.

Wilson, who produced the fastest 400m time by an American since 2009, moved ahead of a 49.26 (2015) for Allyson Felix and only trails Sanya Richards-Ross (48.70, 2006), Valerie Brisco-Hooks (48.83, 1984), and Chandra Cheeseborough (49.05, 1984).

Scheduled to race an hour later in the 400m hurdles, a lightning delay prior to the start of the men’s hurdle race added a 30-minute window before Wilson raced again.

Gliding over each hurdle, Wilson proved unbeatable on this day as she won in 53.28, putting nearly two seconds on the runner-up as Kentucky’s Masai Russell posted a 55.21 with Florida’s Vanessa Watson third in 55.59.

Wilson’s time ranks as the No. 4 performance on the collegiate all-time list, trailing the collegiate and SEC meet record of 52.75 established by Kentucky’s Sydney McLaughlin in 2018, a 53.21 by Stanford’s Kori Carter to win the 2013 NCAA title, and the 53.23 by Wilson in April.

Among the all-time collegiate performances, Wilson now has five of the top 12 times from the past two seasons. Her personal best of 53.08, set after the collegiate season in 2022 as the silver medalist in the USATF Championships, ranks No. 10 on the U.S. all-time list.

Britton Wilson | Previous Records Broken | 400m