While Georgia sophomore Christopher Morales Williams was denied an indoor world record due to a problem with his starting blocks, the sprinter said that doesn't take anything away from his remarkable achievement.
The Canadian teenager clocked 44.49 seconds in the 400 meters at the SEC indoor championships on Saturday, a blistering time briefly held as a world record before officials confirmed it would not be ratified.
“It doesn't take away how fast I ran. It's still the fastest time in the world,” Morales Williams told Reuters.
The blocks were not connected to the Starter Information System, which detects false starts and is required by World Athletics to ratify a record, meaning Kerron Clement's time of 44.57 set in 2005 remains the official mark.
Morales Williams, a 19-year-old from Vaughan, Ont., said the blocks at next week's NCAA championships in Boston meet world standards. But potentially achieving a record that counts is not on his mind.
“It's going to put a little pressure on me, so I'm trying not to think about it too much, because everyone will say, 'He's got to break it again,'” Morales Williams said. “But honestly, if I run the best I can, if I run what I can do, then it should be a world record. Just by running a PB [personal best]That's a world record.”
Morales Williams knew he was flying at a fast pace last weekend in Fayetteville, Arkansas. He had no idea how fast.
“When I finished I felt amazing,” Morales Williams said. “I knew I had won the race with 100 meters left and I kept running and running because I really wanted to win.
“He [time] It was unexpected. “Some people say I accidentally broke the world record because I really wasn't planning it at all.”
The time was half a second faster than the Olympic standard, prompting him to review his goals for the summer.
“My goal originally was to simply make the [Paris Olympic] final and now my goal is to aspire to the podium,” he stated.
His achievement has also begun to sink in.
“Every hour or so I realized, 'I broke the world record!' “I would go crazy,” he said. “It's crazy that it happened and it doesn't feel real. But now I'm starting to believe it, you know, getting used to the fact that it all happened in 44 seconds.”
