Steven Gardiner


Steven Gardiner is a Bahamian track and field sprinter competing in the 400 metres and 200 metres. He won the silver medal at the 2017 World Championships and became the world champion at the 2019 World Championships in the 400 m. He has personal bests of 43.48 s in the 400 m and 19.75 s in the 200 m, both national records. He is the only Bahamian, and the first Caribbean athlete, to run both sub-44 s in the 400 m and sub-20 s in the 200 m.

Early life

Gardiner was born in Murphy Town, Central Abaco in the Bahamas. During his teenage years Gardiner was a competitive volleyball player, but also ran track and field. Gardiner wanted to transition to track in field in the shorter sprints, but his high school coach said he was too tall, so he became a 400 m runner.

Career

Gardiner competed in the sport in his teenage years and ran in the 400 m at the national championships in 2013. He entered three events at the 2014 CARIFTA Games: he only managed fourth in the individual 200 metres but claimed a silver in the 4 × 100 metres relay and a bronze in the 4 × 400 metres relay. He marked himself as one of Bahamas top young athletes with a win at the Bahamian junior championships in June that year. An appearance at the 2014 World Junior Championships in Athletics resulted in a semi-final run in the 200 m and a sixth-place finish in the 4 × 400 m.
His first senior medal came at the 2015 IAAF World Relays, held on home turf, where he gave American competitor Jeremy Wariner a close run in the 4 × 400 m, helping the Bahamas to the silver medal alongside Ramon Miller, Michael Mathieu and Chris Brown. He began to focus on the 400 m in the 2015 season and this proved a successful transition. He rapidly improved to become the youngest Bahamian ever, at 19 years old, to run the distance under 45 seconds, and moved up to fourth on the Bahamian all-time lists with a best of 44.64 seconds. He set the time at the Bislett Games, which brought him victory on his debut on the IAAF Diamond League circuit, finishing ahead of Matthew Hudson-Smith and Pavel Maslák.

Statistics

All information from IAAF profile.

Personal bests

International competitions

Circuit wins

400 metres