Shaunae Miller-Uibo


Shaunae Miller-Uibo is a Bahamian athlete sprinter who competes in the 200 and 400 metres. She was the 400 metres Olympic champion in 2016 and was the 200 m gold medallist at the 2018 Commonwealth Games. At the World Athletics Championships she won 400 m silver in 2015 and 2019 and 200 m bronze in 2017.
Miller-Uibo was a 400 m gold medallist at the 2010 World Junior and 2011 World Youth Championships before taking her first senior medal at the 2014 IAAF World Indoor Championships. She was the IAAF Diamond League champion in both 200 m and 400 m in 2017.
Her personal best of 21.74 is the Bahamian national record for the 200 m. She is the fastest Bahamian over 400 m with a time of 48.37 seconds, which secured her the sixth place at the all-time top list. She holds unofficial world records in the 200 metres straight and 300 metres indoor events. She has won several national titles in 200 m and 400 m, and also won the NCAA Division I Indoor title for the Georgia Bulldogs and Lady Bulldogs.

Early life

Of Afro-Bahamian heritage, Miller-Uibo was born to Mabelene and Shaun Miller in Nassau, Bahamas on 15 April 1994. She completed her high school education at St. Augustine's College in Nassau and later attended the University of Georgia. She met Maicel Uibo, an Estonian decathlete, at Georgia and the pair married in 2017.

Career

Youth career

Miller-Uibo competed in athletics from a very young age and won five medals at the 2007 Central American and Caribbean Age Group Championships in Athletics in the under-14 category. Bronze medals in relay races followed at the 2009 CARIFTA Games and the 2009 Pan American Junior Athletics Championships.
She claimed the 400 m titles at the 2010 Central American and Caribbean Junior Championships and 2010 CARIFTA Games, as well as four medals with the Bahamas in the 4 × 100 metres relay and 4 × 400 metres relay. Sixteen-year-old Miller-Uibo became the first Bahamian to be 400 m champion at the 2010 World Junior Championships in Athletics and the youngest woman to ever win the event. She won the gold medal in a time of 52.52 denying Margaret Etim who finished second in 53.05.
In the following year Miller-Uibo won the 2011 World Youth Championships in Athletics with a time of 51.84, becoming the first athlete to ever hold both the U20 and U18 championship 400 m titles concurrently. She returned to defend her 400 m title at the 2011 CARIFTA Games, but was disqualified in the final. She also failed in her defence at the 2012 World Junior Championships in Athletics, trailing in fourth. She did however win 200 m and 4 × 400 metres relay silver medals at the 2012 CARIFTA Games. In her last age category competition, she won three gold medals at the 2013 CARIFTA Games and was given the Austin Sealy Award as the best athlete of the tournament.

Senior career

At the 2012 Olympics Miller-Uibo did not finish her 400 m heat. Miller-Uibo turned professional in 2013, signing a sponsorship deal with Adidas. She made her first global final that same year, taking fourth at the 2013 World Championships in Athletics in the 200 m. The year after, she won her first senior medal at the 2014 IAAF World Indoor Championships behind Francena McCorory and Kaliese Spencer in the 400 m. She made the 200 m final at the 2014 Commonwealth Games, but ended the race in sixth.
The 2015 season marked her first impact at the IAAF Diamond League, as she won the 400 m at the top level Athletissima and Memorial Van Damme meets. Miller-Uibo won the silver medal in the 400 m at the 2015 World Championships that year. She also ran with the Bahamian women's 4 × 400 metres relay team in the heats at that competition and set a Bahamian national record of 3:28.46 minutes.
In 2016, Miller-Uibo won the Prefontaine Classic 400 m event.
At the 2017 Prefontaine Classic, Miller-Uibo became the first Bahamian woman to run under 22 seconds in the 200 metres, improving her own national record to 21.91 seconds. On 4 June 2017, she set the 200 metres straight world record of 21.76, greatly improving the previous record of 22.55 set by Allyson Felix. At the 2017 World Championships she won the bronze medal in the 200 metres race. She finished fourth in the 400 metres event. In the same year, Miller-Uibo won both the 400 m and the 200 m Diamond League titles, making her the first Bahamian to ever win a Diamond League title.
Having dominated both the 200m and 400m during 2018 and 2019, Miller-Uibo won the 400 m silver medal in the 2019 World Championships in Athletics in Qatar, running the tenth fastest time in history, a national record of 48.37 seconds.The winner of the event, Salwa Eid Naser, was provisionally suspended by the Athletics integrity Unit in June 2020 for missing four anti doping tests in a period of 12 months, the last of which was in January 2020.

Olympic champion

At the 2016 Olympics she won the gold medal in the 400 m, diving across the line to beat Allyson Felix by 0.07 seconds and record a personal best time of 49.44 seconds. She was the flag-bearer for the Bahamas at the 2016 Summer Olympics.

Competition record

National titles