Kerron Stewart

Anthony Foster, Freelance Writer

Jamaican Kerron Stewart was on fire at yesterday's SEC Indoor Track & Field Championships held at Nutter Fieldhouse Running Track, University of Kentucky in Lexington, Kentucky.

Stewart, a member of Jamaica's 4x100m gold medal winning team at the 2002 World Junior Championships, ran and world-leading time and broke several records in her impressive display at the meet.

In the preliminaries on Saturday, Stewart, representing Auburn, ran 22.76 over 200 metres and returned yesterday with a sizzling 22.46 seconds, the fastest time in the world this season.

The time bettered Veronica Campbell's SEC Indoor and University of Kentucky's (UK) Fieldhouse field records of 22.67. Stewart now holds four of the top eight fastest female Indoor 200m times (22.46, 22.76, 23.00, and 23.25) based on the IAAF's Top List.

She is now the third fastest Jamaican ever over 200m indoors, only behind Merlene Ottey who holds the World Record with 21.87 and Campbell (22.38).

She is also the 10th fastest woman ever indoors, which puts her ahead of great Jamaicans such as Juliet Cuthbert (22.60) and Juliet Campbell (22.64), this according to the IAAF's Top List.

The top class field was left for dead as Stewart flew past to win ahead of World Junior gold medallist Shalonda Solomon of South Carolina (23.02), Courtney Champion of Tennessee (23.14A) and Trinidad & Tobago's Carifta Games gold medallist Kelly Ann Baptiste of Louisiana State (23.23A).

Other Jamaicans Nadine Palmer (23.56) and Tracey-Ann Rowe (23.70), both formerly of Holmwood, were seventh and ninth respectively.

Like the 200m, only the American Collegiate record of 7.09 seconds held by Angella Williams was left standing, as Stewart blazed the track to win in 7.14 seconds, the second fastest time in the world this year.