Sydney Sutton is no stranger to a busy race schedule. At New Balance Nationals Outdoor from June 19-22 – the final meet of her high school career – the Maryland native competed in four championship finals in the span of three days.
In Sutton’s first collegiate championship meet, however, her ability to quickly bounce back from races was put to the ultimate test. On Feb. 28 at the SEC Indoor Championships, the Florida freshman lined up for the 400-meter final just 50 minutes before she was scheduled to take on the fastest field in conference history in the 200-meter final.
“I’ve had… multiple races in one day,” Sutton said, “but definitely never a time where I had two races that close together.”
Despite having personal best efforts in her legs from both events’ qualifying races in the two days prior, Sutton showed no signs of fatigue as she tore around the track in the Gators’ “Championship Whites.” She placed fourth in the 400-meter final, covering two laps of the track in 51.46 seconds and earning five points towards Florida’s eventual conference title. Sutton’s performance marked the first time she had broken the 52-second barrier indoors and shaved nearly a full second off her day-old personal best of 52.27.
Sutton stepped off the track and went straight to the athletic trainer’s table, where she got a quick treatment to flush the lactic acid out of her legs. Once she was as recovered as possible in such a short timeframe, her attention shifted to getting locked back in for the next race.
“I’m just a very competitive person, so I really just tell myself, ‘I want to win, this is what I’ve got to do,’” Sutton said. “I need to execute these steps, and I just keep repeating that over and over again in my mind.”
As her second act, Sutton notched a fifth-place finish in the 200 meters with a 22.93-second clocking, tallying four more team points. This time was just three-hundredths shy of what she managed in the qualifying round two nights earlier and only the third time in her career she had dipped under 23 seconds, indoors or out.
“It was just a beginner to what I feel like I could really be doing on the track,” Sutton said. “I know my strengths… I wanted to compete and do my best, and I did just that.”
Sutton’s transition to collegiate competition has gone rather smoothly, and her performance in College Station, Texas, proved that. A major factor in that is where she was coming from.
The Bullis School in Potomac, Maryland, has consistently been one of the premier track programs in the nation, producing Olympic champions like Masai Russell and Quincy Wilson, as well as Ryan Willie, a 13-time All-American for the Gators from 2021 to 2023.
“It prepared me a lot,” Sutton said. “Always competing against high-level athletes, obviously my teammates were always high-level… Always having the big Bullis ‘B’ to represent, and now having Florida to represent, I just think it all carried over so well.”
The competitive environment in practice and meets is an area where Sutton has found familiarity in the early stages of her collegiate career, but the content of workouts required an adjustment period. Sutton characterizes Florida head coach Mike Holloway’s training as a blend of “sprints and endurance” in the same session, whereas those targeted practices would take place on different days at Bullis.
Now that Sutton has had the opportunity to grow more accustomed to her new training methodology, she’s been able to reap the rewards when she lines up to race. That’s why her barrier-breaking weekend came as no surprise to her or Holloway.
“I think the biggest thing is Syd’s mindset, Syd’s a very confident young woman,” Holloway said. “If you know Syd and you watch her train every day, we kind of saw that coming.”
In addition to her performances being fast enough to qualify for the upcoming NCAA Indoor Championships – where Sutton has decided not to contest the 200 meters – she scored nine of the Gators’ 77 points in a team race that was decided by only four points at the end of the meet. Sutton played a key role in the resurgence of the Florida women’s team that went from 11th at the conference meet last year to the top step of the podium. Without even considering that two of the legs on the runner-up distance medley relay were freshman, 27 points came directly from athletes who weren’t on the roster a year ago.
“I’m actually so proud of my teammates, and I tell them this every single day,” Sutton said. “Especially my 400 [meter] girls… I’m just so happy to be a part of this team and to be able to contribute and give them everything I could do.”
Sutton’s “400 girls” are fellow freshmen Malia Campbell and Tyra Cox and junior Quincy Penn, who make up a lightning-fast 4x400-meter relay. Florida was able to scratch the mile relay at SECs, having already mathematically clinched the team title, but this quartet will get the chance to put their talents on full display at the national championships. Anchored by Sutton, they ran 3:28.37 at the Tyson Invitational on Feb. 14, ranking as the fourth-fastest team in the country and the second-fastest in program history.
“Seeing how much we’ve progressed and how much more room we have to get better and only get faster,” Sutton said, “it’s just an amazing experience.”
When Sutton returns to the Randal Tyson Track Center in Fayetteville, Arkansas, for the third time in her short collegiate career, she’ll be doing so with a lighter schedule, new personal bests, and one goal on her mind.
“No matter what, if I was in high school, college, going into nationals, going to Worlds, I always just had the same mindset,” Sutton said. “I want to win, I want to be competitive, and obviously I won’t let anybody stop me from doing that.”
Sutton’s drive for national glory will begin on Mar. 13 in the 400-meter qualifying round. If she makes it through to the final, she’ll contest that final on Mar. 14, about two hours before racing for the 4x400-meter relay title.
Contact Paul Hof-Mahoney at phof-mahoney@alligator.org and follow him on X at @phofmahoney.
Paul is a senior in his fourth semester on the track and field/cross country beat for The Alligator. In his free time, you can increasingly see him jogging around Gainesville or endlessly falling deeper down the rabbit hole that is track Twitter.
