University of Kentucky track athlete Abby Steiner is likely in need of a larger trophy case.
Steiner has added to her bulging list of honors with one of the most difficult and prestigious accolades to earn – the 2023 NCAA Today’s Top 10 award, which recognizes outstanding achievements as athletes, students and contributors to their campuses and communities. Only 10 student-athletes are selected each year, from all sports and athletes in NCAA Division I, Division II and Division III, which for the 2021-22 school year alone, totaled more than 520,000 student-athletes. She will receive the honor on January 11 during the annual NCAA Convention in San Antonio.
Among the swiftest athletes on the planet, Steiner won three NCAA titles this year. Individually, she swept the 200-meter dash at the indoor and outdoor national championships, setting an American record and second-fastest mark in world history with a blazing 22.09 seconds in the indoor event. Then, in the outdoor 4×400 relay, she turned in one of the most amazing performances in collegiate track history. Taking the baton in the third leg, at least 25 meters behind in fourth place, she blew past the world-class competition and gave the baton – now approximately seven meters ahead – to Alexis Holmes, who took it to the finish for the Wildcat gold medal.
In addition to the indoor 200 record, Steiner also holds the collegiate records for the outdoor 200 (21.80) and indoor 300 (35.80) and as part of the 4×400 relay, which ran 3:21.93 at this year’s Southeastern Conference Championships.
To this date, Steiner has swept the national track athlete of the year awards – the 2022 Honda Sport Award for track and field and the 2022 Women’s Indoor Track Athlete of the Year and Outdoor Track Athlete of the Year by the United States Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association – with one national honor remaining to be announced, The Bowerman, on December 15. During her collegiate years, she earned 18 USTFCCCA All-America honors, including 11 first-team accolades. On the conference level, she is a 13-time SEC medalist in various events, including four gold medals, six silver and three bronze.
Also strong in the classroom, Steiner was both the SEC Indoor and Outdoor Track and Field Scholar-Athlete of the Year after compiling a 3.802 grade-point average and earning a degree in Kinesiology. She is interested in a career in physical therapy following her time on the track and has interned with Kentucky BioMotion Research Lab, assisting research on how movement and muscle dysfunction affect pain and function within orthopedic patients.
Having graduated summa cum laude in the spring, Steiner turned professional in the summer and immediately made her mark on the world stage. She won the 200 at the USA Track and Field Outdoor Championships, moving on to the World Athletics Championships, where she helped earn two gold medals for the United States as part of the 4×100 and 4×400 relays.
Steiner, originally from Dublin, Ohio, is the fourth UK student-athlete to win the NCAA Today’s Top 10 honor in the last eight years, joining hurdler Kendra Harrison (2016), swimmer Danielle Galyer (2018) and swimmer Asia Seidt (2021). With more than a million student-athletes competing in the NCAA over the last eight years, only 80 have been named NCAA Today’s Top 10, and Kentucky has four of them – more than any school on the Division I level and second overall only to Washington University in St. Louis (six), which competes in Division III.
The complete news release from the NCAA, featuring all 10 members of the 2023 class, can be seen here.
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| Tony Neely, Assistant ADAthletics Communications and Public Relations | |
| University of Kentucky Athletics |
