UGA’S ADAEJAH HODGE SHATTERS SHA’CARRI RICHARDSON’S NCAA 100M RECORD WITH FIFTH-FASTEST TIME IN WORLD HISTORY

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The Panam Sports ambassador never let up. From the moment Adaejah Hodge fired out of the blocks at Hayward Field on Thursday night, it was clear something extraordinary was unfolding.

The University of Georgia redshirt freshman and metro Atlanta native — a Douglasville product and Olympian from the British Virgin Islands — blazed to a wind-legal 10.63 seconds in the opening heat of the women’s 100-meter preliminaries at the 2026 NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships, shattering Sha’Carri Richardson’s iconic collegiate record of 10.75 that had stood since 2019. The performance also established a new under-20 world record and stands as the fifth-fastest 100-meter time ever recorded by a woman in history.

And it was only a semifinal.

Explosive from the Blocks

Hodge’s race was a clinic in technical dominance. Bursting from the blocks with tremendous force in the middle of the field, she separated from her competitors with a ferocity that silenced the crowd before it could fully register what it was witnessing. Her acceleration in the latter half of the race was relentless — rather than tightening up or decelerating as so many sprinters do over the final 20 meters, Hodge surged. She crossed the line with daylight between herself and the field, stopping the clock at 10.63 with a legal tailwind of 1.9 meters per second.

LSU’s Shawnti Jackson finished a distant second in a personal-best 10.88, with USC’s Brianna Selby advancing in 10.94. Tennessee’s Dana Wilson (11.01) and South Carolina’s JaMeesia Ford (11.02) rounded out the top five. The field was talented. On this night, there was simply no match.

Ambassador, Olympian, Record-Breaker

What makes Hodge’s rise all the more remarkable is the breadth of her identity on the world stage. She represents the British Virgin Islands internationally — and she is already an Olympian, having competed for BVI at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games before her freshman season at UGA had even begun.

She was a Panam Sports ambassador for the 2025 Junior Pan American Games as well, a role that underscores her stature not just as an athlete but as a representative of the sport across the Americas and Caribbean. At just 20 years old, she is carrying the flag for an entire region while quietly rewriting the record books of American collegiate athletics.

The Record That Fell

Richardson’s 10.75, set during her dominant 2019 NCAA championship run, had become one of the most celebrated and seemingly untouchable marks in collegiate sprinting. It endured for seven years through generations of elite collegians, a monument to one of track and field’s most electric careers. Hodge didn’t chip away at it — she erased it by 12 hundredths of a second, a massive margin at the top level of the sport.

Hodge entered the championships already holding the No. 2 time in collegiate history at 10.77 seconds. Thursday’s performance was her personal best and confirmed what those in the sport had quietly been saying: this teenager may be generational.

What Comes Next

Thursday’s performance — stunning as it was — was not the final. Hodge also posted the fastest 200-meter heat time at 21.96 seconds and anchored the Georgia 4×100 relay squad that recorded the second-fastest heat time at 42.0 flat. She arrived at Eugene chasing a potential triple. She is now chasing history.

“I actually didn’t see the time, at all,” Hodge told the media. “Because it’s just business at the end of the day, this is just day one, we still have to come on Saturday for day two. So I didn’t want to get caught up in times or anything, mainly execution.”

The women’s 100-meter final is scheduled for 8:52 p.m. PT on Saturday, June 13, at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon. Hodge enters as the overwhelming favorite for the national title.

The record is hers. The crown may soon follow.