Salwa clocks season’s best in US race

TDT | Manama                                                

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com     

Bahrain’s elite sprinter and former world champion Salwa Eid Naser claimed a strong runner-up finish in the women’s 400 metres at the USATF Los Angeles Grand Prix in the US early yesterday morning.

Competing in only the third race of her outdoor campaign, Salwa clocked her season’s best time of 50.27 seconds as she finished not far behind winner Marileidy Paulino of the Dominican Republic, who won in 48.98s.

Lynna Irby-Jackson of the US came third in 50.38s. It was Salwa’s second straight second-place finish.

The meeting was a World Athletics Continental Tour gold-level event. Salwa was the only Bahraini competing at the meeting.

Her 2023 best in LA bettered her previous marks of 52.24s in Chile last week and 50.88s in her season debut, also held earlier this month.

She still has a long way to go before matching her personal best of 48.14s, which is the Asian and Bahraini record set in 2019. Salwa is one of the Kingdom’s leading international athletes.

Aside from her women’s 400m world title which she won in 2019, she is also an Olympic Games silver-medallist and a former world junior champion, both in the same distance.

Furthermore, she is a multiple Asian and Asian Games champion.

Salwa will be amongst Bahrain’s chief medal hopefuls later this summer at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest in August, and the Hangzhou Asian Games in China this September and October.