U.S. looks to match success of 100-meter hurdles at Rio Olympics

By Erik Boal, DyeStat Editor

Keni Harrison, Christina Manning and Sharika Nelvis all advanced to the women's 60-meter hurdles final Saturday night at Arena Birmingham, setting up the potential for the first medal sweep in the history of the IAAF World Indoor Championships.

The U.S. had three female athletes reach the World Indoor 60 hurdles final in 2016 in Portland, Ore., with Nia Ali and Brianna Rollins capturing gold and silver medals, but Harrison finished eighth.

Americans have swept the top two spots twice, in addition to securing gold and bronze once, but have never swept all three 60 hurdles medals.

They are looking to duplicate the success of Rollins, Ali and Kristi Castlin, who led the first medal sweep in any event for the U.S. in the 100-meter hurdles at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

Nelvis is the American record holder at 7.70 seconds, with Harrison (7.72) and Manning (7.73) also ranking among the top eight performers in the history of the 60 hurdles.

Harrison led all qualifiers in the semifinals at 7.79, with Manning clocking 7.83 and Nelvis running 7.86. Nadine Visser set a Dutch indoor record by running 7.83 and Nigeria's Tobi Amusan, an NCAA 100 hurdles champion at UTEP, clocked 7.91 to also make the final.