Shaunae Miller-Uibo

Miller began competing in athletics at a very young age and competed in the under-14 division, winning five medals at the Central American and Caribbean Age Group Championships in 2007.  At the 2009 CARIFTA Games and the 2009 Pan American Junior Athletics Championships, she won bronze medals in relay competitions. She claimed the 400 m crowns at the 2010 CARIFTA Games and the 2010 Central American and Caribbean Junior Championships. She also won four medals for the Bahamas in the 4 X 100 m and 4 X 400m relays. Miller-Uibo, then 16, became the first Bahamian and the youngest woman in history to win the 400 m at the World Junior Championships in Athletics in 2010.

Miller became the first athlete to ever hold both the U20 and U18 championship 400 m titles at the same time when she won the World Youth Championships in Athletics with a time of 51.84 the following year in 2011.   She couldn’t defend her title in the World Junior Athletics Championships in 2012, finishing fourth. She earned silver medals in the 200 m and the 4 X 400 m relay at the 2012 CARIFTA Games. At the 2013 CARIFTA Games, she claimed three gold medals in her last age group competition in 200 metres, 400 metres, and a 4 x 100 relay, earning the Austin Sealy Award as the greatest athlete of the competition.

She made her professional debut in 2013, when she signed a sponsorship agreement with Adidas. In 2013, she competed in her first international final, finishing fourth in the 200 m at the World Championships in Athletics. She made her IAAF Diamond League debut in 2015, winning the 400 m at the premier Athletissima and Memorial Van Damme races. At the 2015 World Championships, Miller-Uibo took home the silver medal in the 400 m. She also competed in the women’s 4 x 400 m relay heats for the Bahamas, setting a national record for the country with a timing of 3:28.46.

In 2016, she beat Allyson Felix, American retired track and field athlete, by 0.07 seconds and recorded a personal best time of 49.44 seconds to win the gold medal in the 400 m at the Rio Olympics. At the 2016 Summer Olympics, she also carried the Bahamas’ national flag. Miller improved her own national record in the 200 m to 21.91 seconds in the 2017 Prefontaine Classic, becoming the first Bahamian woman to do it. She significantly lowered Allyson Felix’s previous record of 22.55 seconds when she established the 200-meter straight world record of 21.76 seconds on June 4, 2017. At the World Championships 2017 in London, she took home the bronze medal. In the 400-meter final, she came in fourth in 200m. Miller won the 200 m and 400 m championships in the same year, making history as the first Bahamian to ever take home a Diamond League title.

Miller-Uibo earned the silver medal in the 400 m at the 2019 World Championships in Athletics in Qatar after dominating the 200 m in both 2018 and 2019 and setting a world record in the 400 m in 2018. She ran the 400 m with the tenth-fastest time in history, a national record of 48.37 seconds. Miller-Uibo later won gold and defended her title successfully in the 400 m at the Tokyo Olympics 2020.  She claimed the women’s 400 m event at the World Indoor Championships in Belgrade in March 2022, winning with a timing of 50.31 seconds after taking bronze in the indoor event in 2014. She then won her first senior world outdoor championship at the World Championships Eugene 2022 later that year in July with a timing of 49.11 seconds

Her greatest rival is Salwa Eid Naser who is a Nigerian-born Bahraini sprinter. She won the 400 meters event at the 2019 World Championships in the third-fastest time in history with a timing of 48.14 seconds, becoming the sport’s youngest winner in history as well as the first Asian woman to do so. In June 2020, she was initially temporarily suspended. In October, the AIU Disciplinary Tribunal found her not guilty.

Shaunae Miller-Uibo was born on April 15, 1994, to Shaun Miller and Mabelene Miller and  was raised in Nassau.  Shaunae was born into an Afro-Bahamian household. From a young age, Shaunae showed an interest in athletics. She started competing in sports events while she was a student at St. Augustine College, pursuing her desire for being an athlete. After completing her high school education, Shaunae moved to the United States in order to attend the University of Georgia in Athens and play for the collegiate team Georgia Bulldogs. Shaunae Miller joined the Pure Athletics Club in 2014 when Lance Burman noticed her talent for sports. Since 2015, she has been working out at the facility with Lance’s guidance. She married to Maicel Uibo, an Estonian decathlete, in 2017.