BATON ROUGE – After running an NCAA-leading and World-leading time of 20.57 seconds in the 200-meter final at the Conference Clash Power Five Invitational last weekend, LSU junior Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake was named the Southeastern Conference Men’s Runner of the Week as announced by the conference office on Tuesday afternoon.
It marks the first time in his collegiate career that Mitchell-Blake has been recognized by the SEC for his outstanding performance while leading the Tigers at the Birmingham Crossplex last weekend.
Mitchell-Blake lined up in his first 200-meter dash for LSU in nearly two years and emerged as an NCAA-title contender with an NCAA-leading and World-leading performance for the 2016 indoor season. After smashing his indoor PR with the top time in qualifying at 20.89 seconds on Friday night, Mitchell-Blake dropped more than three tenths of a second off of that indoor best with a winning run of 20.57 in Saturday’s final.
That performance also moved Mitchell-Blake into the No. 4 spot on LSU’s all-time indoor performnace list in the men’s 200 meters as one of the fastest sprinters indoors in school history.
In winning the race in 20.57, Mitchell-Blake beat Tennessee’s Christian Coleman to the finish line as the Volunteer standout clocked the No. 2-ranked time in the NCAA this season at 20.70 in the final. While Coleman might have crossed the finish line as the No. 2-ranked 200-meter sprinter in the SEC, NCAA and World rankings for 2016, it was Mitchell-Blake who topped the charts as the No. 1-ranked sprinter in each ranking.
Mitchell-Blake, who attended high school at Jamaica College in Kingston but competes internationally for the United Kingdom, entered the 200 meters at the Conference Clash Power Five Invitational with his previous indoor personal best of 20.98 that he set during his sophomore season in 2014.