World record-breaker Charlton relishing a life in track and field

As she prepared to challenge for a world indoor title to go along with her world indoor record, Devynne Charlton reflected on her Bahamian roots and mused: “I kinda owe my existence to track and field.”

It might have taken the girl from Nassau a mere 7.67 seconds to make her way into the world record books in New York on 11 February, but she has a keen appreciation of the grand sweep of time and circumstance that put her in such an elevated position.

Overlooking the bright new track where she will be going for gold on the concluding day of the World Athletics Indoor Championships Glasgow 24 on Sunday (3), Charlton pondered the fateful meeting of her future parents.

Her father, Dave Charlton, represented The Bahamas at the very first World Championships, outdoors in Helsinki in 1983. 

He finished seventh in a 400m hurdles heat won by Harald Schmid, the West German who took silver behind Ed Moses in the final. 

Dave also ran on the anchor leg for the Bahamian 4x100m team that finished sixth in their heat, struggling manfully in an attempt to match strides with European 100m champion Frank Emmelmann from East Germany.

Dave has been named as head coach of Team Bahamas for the World Athletics Relays Bahamas 24, which takes place at the Robinson National Stadium in Nassau on 4-5 May. 

Laura Charlton, Devynne’s mother, is a member of the local organising committee. And Devynne herself will be part of the competing home team.

“Yeah, my parents are heavily involved in the sport,” Devynne reflected. “They met at a track meet.

“I grew up doing track, following in my dad’s footsteps. Having two parents who are so involved in the sport has definitely played a role in my success coming up in the sport.

“I’m just thankful to them for the support they’ve been able to give me.”

That support was rewarded at the Millrose Games World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold meeting in New York City on the evening of 11 February. 

Dave and Laura were looking down from the stands as their dynamic daughter rocketed out of the starting blocks, powered over the five flights in her smooth, snappy style, and crossed the line in 7.67 – 0.01 inside the world record figures set in Karlsruhe back in 2008 by the Swede Susanna Kallur.

During a family celebration meal afterwards, Charlton could recall nothing from the blur of the race – only the time and the ‘WR’ next to it on the trackside clock after crossing the line.

Three weeks on, the 28-year-old confessed: “I’ve watched that race about a thousand times now - if not more. 

“My mind kind of went blank during the race, so I have zero recollection of it. Watching it back, I can appreciate what actually happened and what I did.”

Charlton, of course, is now the joint world record-holder, Tia Jones having matched her 7.67 in the heats at the US Indoor Championships in Albuquerque six days later. Jones subsequently suffered an injury tumbling out of the arena in the final that has, sadly, ruled her out of the world indoor equation.

Not that the joint world record time might stand still for very long. 

Despite suffering from jetlag, Charlton finished just 0.01 shy of it in the final World Indoor Athletics Tour Gold meeting in Madrid on 23 February.

Having scrutinised her New York performance so comprehensively, she considers there to be room for improvement – quite possibly on the fast new track in the Glasgow Arena.

“I think my reaction time wasn’t so great,” said Charlton. “It could have been better.”

Indeed, at 0.168 it was considerably slower than that of Danielle Williams, the Jamaican who regained the world outdoor title in Budapest last August, where Charlton finished 0.06 shy of the podium in fourth. 

Williams left the blocks in 0.127. She went on to finish a relative distant runner up in 7.79, the same time as Jones in third place.

“I also think I pushed it a little too hard to the line and started leaning a bit early,” Charlton continued. “I think a focus will be to hold that position off the last hurdle and just time my lean better.

“The surface here feels amazing. It feels like a fast track. 

“I think it might be a little bit of a placebo, talking of a track being fast, but I’ll definitely play into it.”

What the cerebral Charlton does not ‘play into’ is the conclusion that the absence of Jones is a good thing for herself, affording the Bahamian a buffer of 0.11 on the rest of the field on season’s bests.

“I’m a competitor, so I want to race as good a field as possible,” insisted Charlton. “I was really looking forward to having Tia here in the race. 

“To have had the two fastest women ever in the 60m hurdles, I think would have made for a good competition.”

The next fastest contender is Nadine Visser. The two-time European indoor champion from the Netherlands clocked 7.78 behind Charlton’s 7.68 in Madrid.

The silver medallist behind Cyrena Samba-Mayela of France in Belgrade two years ago, Charlton stands to join a select band of world indoor champions from her tiny Caribbean homeland.

There have been four thus far. 

Chandra Sturrup took 60m gold ahead of the US pair Angela Williams and Chryste Gaines in Lisbon in 2001. Dominic Demeritte has been the reigning men’s 200m champion for two decades now, having emerged victorious from the last final at the distance in Budapest in 2004.

Then came Chris Brown, who won the men’s 400m in Doha in 2010, and Shaunae Miller-Uibo, who left Femke Bol trailing in her wake in the women’s 400m in Belgrade in 2022.

Debbie Ferguson-McKenzie failed to make it beyond the 60m semifinals on her sole world indoor appearance as a teammate of the history-making Demeritte in Budapest in 2004. 

It was her performance as the anchor leg runner for the Bahamian ‘Golden Girls’ in the Olympic 4x100m in Sydney four years earlier that inspired Charlton to reach for the global stars as a track athlete.

“I was four years old,” Charlton recalled. “I remember watching the Golden Girls and thinking, ‘That’s what I want to do.’

“Debbie was one of my favourite athletes growing up and now she’s become like a mentor to me. I’m really enjoying that full circle.”

As fate would have it, Ferguson-McKenzie has become an assistant to Charlton’s long-time Bahamian coach Rolando “Lonnie” Greene at the University of Kentucky. Charlton herself helps out as a volunteer youth coach at the UK track in Lexington.

Like her childhood idol-turned-mentor, the 5ft 3in pride of Nassau hopes to inspire the next generation back home by striking a mighty blow for her nation on the grand global track and field stage.

The Bahamas has a population of 400,000 – a little less than a quarter of the size of the Glasgow City Region.

“For such a small country, I think we do really, really well to produce such high-quality athletes,” Charlton said.

“I think it says a lot about how we are as people, how determined we are to make our presence felt on the world stage.”

Simon Turnbull for World Athletics