These Blue-Chip Girls Sprints Are Loaded At The VA Showcase

* Mia Brahe-Pedersen will feature in the girls 200m championship at The VA Showcase

Photo Credit: Bobby Reyes/MileSplit

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Three future-NCAA Division I athletes will step to the line in the USATF 200 meter indoor championship at The VA Showcase on Jan. 12. Three more will vie for the 300m. 

The prime-time races will be back-to-back. 

Talk about a blue-chip roster.

Among the 200m field will be Mia Brahe-Pedersen, a U.S. women's outdoor 100 meter championship finalist and NACAC U23 champion; Brianna Selby, a New Balance Nationals Indoor champion; and Skyler Franklin, the country's top girls freshman from a year ago who now runs for Montverde Academy. 

Adaejah Hodge, a burgeoning British Virgin Islands star, will highlight the 300m, alongside Elise Cooper, a Pan American U20 silver-medalist in the 200m and Josie Donelson, Brahe-Pedersen's teammate at Lake Oswego. Sydney Sutton, an emerging star in the Class of 2025, is also in this field. 

We're only in January. 

A year ago, Hodge, the recently-minted University of Georgia signee, re-set the indoor national record -- and a new World U20 mark -- in the 200m, clocking a time of 22.33 seconds at New Balance Nationals Indoor.

It's a time that is seemingly unbreakable for a prep athlete going forward.  

It would have been good enough to place fourth at the NCAA Indoor Championships that same year. 

The Montverde Academy (FL) star went on to feature for the British Virgin Islands at the World Championships in Budapest, reaching the semifinals of the 200m and clocking a time of 22.82. She began the indoor season ranked No. 1 on the MileSplit50. 

She's selected the 300m. The national record, set last year by Shawnti Jackson at this very meet, stands at 36.63 seconds.

WATCH LIVE: THE VA SHOWCASE

Begins Airing On Jan. 12 at 11:30 a.m. EST

The USATF 200m girls championship is set for 6:53 p.m. EST

Then there's Brahe-Pedersen. Earlier in 2023, the Lake Oswego High School star became just the second girls athlete all-time to dip under 23 seconds indoors, jump-starting what would become a historic year at the distance.

She ran 22.89 last February at the Don Kirby Invitational, becoming the first athlete to re-set the national record. Pedersen wasn't in Hodge's historic race. Instead, she clocked a time of 23.35 to win the 200m at Nike Indoor Nationals. 

She would go on to become the first girls athlete to sign an NIL deal with Nike. Then she reached the final of the women's 100 meter outdoor championships and won NACAC U23 titles in the 100m and 200m. 

She's opted for the 200m. 

Cooper followed with a PR of her own in the 200m, timing in at 22.80 seconds. She's up against Hodge in the 400m. 

After finishing second at the U.S. U20 Championships, she picked up a silver at the distance at the Pan American U20 Championships. 

Selby didn't have a bad year, either. She won two back-to-back national titles in the 60m at New Balance Nationals Indoor and adidas Indoor Nationals. She ran a time of 24.03 seconds in the 200m, then followed with an overall wind-aided PR of 23.69 outdoors. She's got her biggest test with Brahe-Pedersen in the picture. 

But the two will be future teammates, as they both inked with USC over the National Letter of Intent period. 

Franklin, meanwhile, is the youngest of the five. She ran for Western High School her freshman season, producing class No. 1s of 23.42 and 52.52 in the 200m and 400m. 

Despite her age, the Florida teenager is surely capable of challenging her competitors at The VA Showcase. 

Donelson, a senior who has signed with Vanderbilt, has run just once indoors but owns a 400m PR of 53.94. Sutton, meanwhile, has run 23.25 for 200m and 53.88 for 400m.

Related Links: 

The VA Showcase meet page

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