Alabama All-American Tahesia Harrigan struck gold for her native British Virgin Islands at the recent Central American and Caribbean Games held in Cartagena, Colombia.
The sprinter, who just completed her senior season at Alabama, won the 100-meter dash with a dominating time of 11.15, just 1/100ths of a second off the CAC Games record and nearly half a second ahead of the rest of the field. She was followed by the U.S. Virgin Islands' Laverne Jones in 11.50 and St. Kitts and Nevis' Virgil Hodge in 11.52.
"I've been working on it all year and I said I'd go out there, do my best and hopefully come up with the gold and it happened," Harrigan told the Virgin Island Daily News.
The gold medal was just the second for BVI during its 24-year participation in the competition. The BVI is one of the smallest countries to send a delegation to the games.
"She showed great patience today," Alabama assistant coach Sydney Cartwright said. "It's just a result of her maturity now, where she's able to take information, process it and put it forth in the next race and she did a good job of that."
Harrigan closed out her Alabama career with All-American honors in the 100m dash after taking fourth place in the 100m dash at the NCAA Championships. At the NCAA Mideast Regionals, Harrigan was second in the 100m and fourth in the 200m.
