Adaejah Hodge ran 10.63 seconds in a 100m semifinal at the NCAA Outdoor Championships on Thursday, breaking the collegiate record and moving to fifth on the all-time world list.
The University of Georgia redshirt freshman, who races for the British Virgin Islands, won her opening heat at Hayward Field with a legal tailwind of 1.9 meters per second. The run wiped out Sha’Carri Richardson‘s 10.75, the collegiate record Richardson set at LSU in 2019.
Only four women have ever run faster. Florence Griffith Joyner sits at the top with 10.49, ahead of Elaine Thompson-Herah (10.54), Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce (10.60) and Melissa Jefferson-Wooden (10.61). Hodge’s 10.63 ties Fraser-Pryce’s 2021 Kingston mark as the joint ninth-fastest 100m ever run.
Four events later, Hodge was back on the track for the 200m semifinal. She ran 21.96, the No. 6 time in collegiate history and the second-fastest of her career. The double tied Merlene Ottey’s 1990 mark for the quickest 100m and 200m on the same day, in any competition.
Returning from a ban
Hodge is competing again after a 17-month suspension. She tested positive for metabolites of GW501516, a banned metabolic modulator, at the 2024 World Athletics U20 Championships in Lima last August.
According to CITIUS Mag, the Athletics Integrity Unit notified her in person in Georgia in November 2024 and placed her under immediate provisional suspension. She cooperated from that first meeting and sat for a second formal interview in January 2025.
The case ended in a negotiated settlement under World Athletics anti-doping rules. All parties agreed, on the balance of probabilities, that Hodge had ingested the substance unknowingly. The violation was formally classified as non-intentional. She accepted the standard two-year ban, which was then cut by seven months under Rule 10.7.1 for what the AIU called “Substantial Assistance” to investigators. The reduction cleared her to compete on January 28, 2026.
Her results between her positive test and her provisional suspension were thrown out, costing her the gold medal in the 200m and the silver in the 100m at the 2024 World U20 Championships. For more on how careers tend to look after a sanction, see Marathon Handbook’s piece on what really happens after a doping ban.
Her coach at Montverde Academy in Florida, two-time Zambian Olympian Gerald Phiri, was provisionally suspended by the AIU. The agency cited possession of GW501516 as an athlete in 2018 and 2019, possession of meldonium as a coach in 2024, and providing “false and inaccurate information” during the investigation. Three of Phiri’s athletes have now tested positive for metabolites of GW501516. The first publicly named was Issam Asinga, the former World U20 100m record-holder, who received a four-year ban in May 2024 and lost his 9.89 world record. Hodge’s case follows a pattern Marathon Handbook has tracked elsewhere in college sport, including this report on an NCAA All-American competing under a provisional doping suspension.
In her return season, Hodge anchored Georgia to the NCAA Indoor team title in March. She finished second in the 60m and won the 200m in 22.21.
The 100m final goes Saturday at 8:52 p.m. ET on ESPN2, with the 200m final 45 minutes later. With the 2023 world champion‘s collegiate record now in her name, Hodge will be the heavy favorite in both.
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