Aasia Laurencin delivered a fine performance at the Johnny Loaring Classic in Windsor, Canada, on Sunday, setting a new St Lucia record in the women’s 100m hurdles, achieving the World Championship qualifying standard and claiming victory.
The meet, hosted by the University of Windsor Athletics Club, saw the 22-year-old rise to the occasion after a third-place finish in the preliminaries (12.87 seconds).
In the final, Laurencin surged to a winning time of 12.69 seconds, with a legal +2.0 m/s wind, tying her for the 17th-fastest time in the world this year. The mark eclipsed her own month-old national record of 12.88 and broke the meet record of 12.89 set in 2022.
Already a World Indoor Championships semifinalist in March, Laurencin’s performance surpassed the World Championship standard of 12.73, making her only the second Saint Lucian athlete to qualify by standard for September’s global championships in Tokyo. Olympic 100m champion Julien Alfred has also qualified, in both the 100m and 200m.
The University of Michigan graduate outpaced the Bahamas’ Charisma Taylor (a former NACAC U-23 silver medallist and Olympic semifinalist with a PB of 12.63) and Canada’s Tatiana Aholou.
“It was good. My first half wasn’t the best, but my last four hurdles were really good,” Laurencin said. “I am very happy about these results.”
Beyond the track, Laurencin excels academically. After earning her Master’s in social work earlier this year, she was one of just six University of Michigan students with a perfect 4.0 GPA, recognised last week as a Big Ten 2025 Spring Academic honoree.
Laurencin will remain in Canada this week, competing at the Bob Vigars Classic in London, Ontario, a World Athletics Continental Tour Bronze event, where she’ll face Canadian national champion and Olympic semifinalist Mariam Abdul-Rashid.
Wonderful news – commitment, dedication and hard hard work ultimately pays off. You have to work at your skill sets on a continuous basis in order to succeed at whatever legitimate path you choose. Godspeed