PHILADELPHIA — Melissa Jefferson-Wooden was given fancy boxes to display her Olympic medals, and she put them in a prominent place — under the TV in her living room.
But she can’t see the medals, having purposely closed those boxes for 2025. It’s a new year, she reasoned.
“I thought about looking at them maybe once or twice, just as motivation,” she said, “but I got a bronze medal in the 100m last year in Paris, and that’s all the motivation I need. Obviously, I’m very happy with my medal, but I want more.”
Jefferson-Wooden, who also took 4x100m relay gold in Paris, accomplished more over the last two days at Grand Slam Track Philadelphia.
GRAND SLAM TRACK: Full Results
She won Saturday’s 200m in a personal-best 21.99 seconds (and defeated Olympic 200m champion Gabby Thomas).
Then on Sunday, she took the 100m in 10.73, lowering her personal best from 10.80. She moved into a tie for 10th place on the all-time women’s 100m list.
She’s also now the fifth-fastest American ever, the second-fastest active American behind training partner Sha’Carri Richardson (personal best 10.65 from 2023) and the fastest woman in the world for 2025.
Her time Sunday was one hundredth shy of Julien Alfred’s winning time from the Paris Olympics.
Jefferson-Wooden — who was raised in a South Carolina seaport of fewer than 10,000 people, who had two scholarship offers out of high school, who at Coastal Carolina finished last in her first NCAA Championships race and who vowed while watching the Tokyo Olympic Trials that she’d one day make history — now believes she can be the world 100m champion come September.
“Wholeheartedly,” she said.
Jefferson-Wooden got married in March and has already met one goal for the season in breaking 10.80 seconds in the 100m.
She plans to race both the 100m and 200m at the USA Track and Field Outdoor Championships from July 31-Aug. 3, though the 100m remains her focus. The top three in the 100m at nationals, plus defending world champion Richardson, earn spots at worlds in Tokyo.
“I don’t know what my ceiling is or what my limits are,” Jefferson-Wooden said.
The Grand Slam Track season concludes with the fourth meet in Los Angeles the last weekend of June, live on Peacock.
In other events Sunday, Kenny Bednarek won the men’s 100m in 9.86 seconds, shaving one hundredth off his personal best and matching the world’s best time this year.
Bednarek, a two-time Olympic 200m silver medalist, is the only man or woman to go 6-0 in races through the first three Grand Slams.
Jamaican Ackera Nugent completed a sweep of the 100m hurdles and flat 100m by clocking 11.11 seconds in Sunday’s flat race in the short hurdles group.
Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone was runner-up in 11.21 against a field of 100m hurdles specialists. It marked her first flat 100m race since 2018, when she ran a wind-aided 11.07 as a University of Kentucky freshman.
“It’s fun to be able to change it up,” she said. “I don’t like to be confined to just one box. So this is really great for me to work on being a well-rounded athlete.”
McLaughlin-Levrone, who won the 400m hurdles and flat 400m at the first two Slams, is likely to switch to the 200m/400m group for the last Slam in Los Angeles.
She expects to race either the flat 400m or the 400m hurdles at USATF Outdoors in a bid to make the world team. McLaughlin-Levrone has only ever contested the 400m hurdles individually at global championships, though she planned to race the flat 400m at the 2023 Worlds before withdrawing due to injury.
In Sunday’s 1500m, Josh Kerr overtook Cole Hocker in the final straightaway in a duel between the Olympic silver and gold medalists.
Kerr crossed the finish line all the way out in lane six in 3:34:44, while Hocker in lane five was seven hundredths behind.
