MONA­CO – Julien Al­fred pro­duced a his­toric per­for­mance in the 200 me­tres to grab gold in the Mona­co Di­a­mond League on Fri­day.

Com­pet­ing at the Stade Louis II, the 25-year-old Saint Lu­cia Olympic sprint cham­pi­on left chal­lengers Adae­jah Hodge of British Vir­gin Is­lands and Amer­i­can Gabrielle Thomas in her wake on her way to clock­ing 21.51 sec­onds, set­ting a new meet record and na­tion­al record in the process.

Al­fred and Thomas, the 200m gold medal­list, were locked to­geth­er head­ing in­to the fi­nal straight be­fore she pulled clear over the clos­ing me­tres, tak­ing a full two-tenths off her pre­vi­ous best of 21.71.

Her time was al­so the fastest in the world this year and third fastest of all-time, be­hind on­ly Flo­rence Grif­fith-Joyn­er’s world record of 21.34 sec­onds and Ja­maican Sh­er­ic­ka Jack­son’s 21.41.

Hodge, who ar­rived in Mona­co as the world leader af­ter run­ning 21.68 at last month’s NCAA Cham­pi­onships in Eu­gene, fin­ished strong­ly to edge past Thomas for sec­ond in 21.76, while Thomas, placed third in 21.84.

“I have been prepar­ing for this for such a long time, to fi­nal­ly see it pay off, I am just hap­py. I didn’t re­alise how fast it was till I crossed the line. I looked at the clock and saw my time and that’s why I was scream­ing like at the Olympics,” Al­fred said af­ter the race.

“There are no lim­its right now. To­day, I was ac­tu­al­ly hop­ing to see 21.6, I got 21.5, so I am hap­py nonethe­less.”

CMC