Jallow Smashes Collegiate Record As Fast Race Produces Six Of The All-Time Top 10 Performances

By Lori Shontz Special to DyeStat

Keith Webber Photos

RESULTS | INTERVIEWS

EUGENE – After missing the collegiate 800-meter record by .01 two weeks ago at the East Regional, Arkansas senior Sanu Jallow fully expected to get that record at the NCAA championships. She came to Hayward Field with a plan.

“I knew I didn’t just want to break it,” she said. “I wanted to shatter the record. Because breaking it is cool. … but I wanted to make a statement. I wanted to make a stand.”

That she did.

Jallow combined what she called her natural speed with the strength she developed by running cross country in the fall to dominate the race Saturday, winning in 1:56.85 and beating Athing Mu’s record by nearly a second.

Beyond that, she pulled her competition to the greatest 800-meter race in NCAA history. The field is now responsible for six of the NCAA’s top 10 times.

Runner-up Hayley Kitching of Penn State also broke the previous record, running 1:57.65, better than Mu’s 1:57.73 in 2021.

Duke’s Lauren Tolbert is now No. 6 (1:58.22), North Carolina’s Makayla Paige is now No. 7 (1:58.30), Arkansas’ Analisse Batista is now No. 8 (1:58.41) and Kansas’s Emmaculate Jemutai (1:58.55) is No. 9. And Jemutai had finished sixth the 1,500 about an hour earlier.

“It seems like it’s a lot of people just willing to go out fast and risk it,” Paige said. “I feel like over the last few years the biggest change has been how fast people go out and still staying calm and relaxed.”

Everyone in the field knew that Jallow would go out fast, but she went out faster than anyone – including herself – expected. She ran the first 400 in 55.03, about a second ahead of the rest of the field.

“I didn’t think I was going that fast,” Jallow said. “At about 300, I saw 38 or 39 and I thought. ‘I can slow down now.’ But I tell people, my race doesn’t start until the second lap. The first 400 doesn’t feel anything to me.”

Kitching, who likes to run at the front, found herself in last place at 400 meters while splitting 56.29. She said she said to herself, “Wow, there’s a lot more girls here than I thought there were going to be.’”

It required a sub-2 minute effort in Thursday's heats just to advance to the final. 

Jallow maintained her lead on the second lap, while Kitching’s kick in the last 200 meters propelled her all the way to second place.

“I’ve been knowing that I could do that for a while now,” Kitching said. “Training’s been going well. I just haven’t had the opportunity to be in a face race like that. To come here and do it with all these girls – it was super fun.

But she couldn’t come close to Jallow, who had made some major changes to improve her second lap.

A year ago, Jallow didn’t make the final at NCAA outdoors, and she was disqualified for stepping on the line in the prelims, anyway. The year before, she had represented Gambia at the 2024 Paris Olympics. But by the end of the 2025 season, she said, she hadn’t been in the best headspace, and she felt like she had given up on the race before it started.

“I was like, “OK, I don’t care, I’m kinda done. I’m kinda over it,’” Jallow said. “Just like, so many questions. Do I love this sport still? Do I want to keep doing this? Is this sport meant for me?”

She talked with her parents and her coaches, and she decided to continue. She also decided she needed to be a stronger runner, so she joined the Arkansas cross country team last fall.

 “I’ve never endured such pain, oh my God – I thought 800 training was bad,” she said after her semifinal race. “Being around those girls really taught me something different.”

The endurance training from cross country, she said, has paid off in her stronger second lap. She doesn’t get caught on the backstretch any longer, and even when the pain kicks in during the last 150 meters – “I feel like that’s when the monkey starts jumping on you” – she can keep pushing.

“I’m a whole different athlete now,” Jallow said.

Jallow hasn’t lost any of her speed; she also anchored Arkansas’ winning 4x400 relay with a 49.02 split.

She’s turning professional but isn’t sure exactly what the rest of the summer holds. In the meantime, she’s going to savor this NCAA title and record.

“This victory was not just for me,” she said. “It’s more for everybody who was beyond me. You know what they say – it takes a village. My village is big.”