Track and field athlete, LSU alumna, aspiring Olympian
Hometown: Pendleton, South Carolina
Age: 24
In the history of track and field, only six women have completed the 100-meter hurdles in less time than Jasmin Stowers.
To put it simply, she’s fast. Like, crazy fast.
You can find her training any day of the week, working toward her ultimate goal: a spot on the 2016 Olympic team.
With a trail of shattered records behind her, there doesn’t seem to be anything that could stop her from making the trip to Rio in August.
• Stowers earned the 2011 SEC Women’s Freshman Runner of the Year award, qualified as a semifinalist in the 2012 Olympic trials, and became the only Lady Tiger to win three straight SEC Indoor titles in the sprint hurdles aside from Olympian Lolo Jones. Stowers finished her career on LSU’s track and field team in 2014 with five SEC titles, seven All-American honors, a degree in dietetics and the title of the fastest hurdler in LSU history.
• She began her professional career with a national title at the 2015 USA Indoor Track and Field Championships, winning the 60-meter hurdles in a personal-best 7.84 seconds.
• She defeated both reigning world champion Brianna Rollins and 2008 Olympic champion Dawn Harper Nelson in the 100-meter hurdles at the Drake Relays in April 2015.
• She set a personal record of 12.35 seconds in the 100-meter hurdles at the 2015 Doha Diamond League in Doha, Qatar, earning her the seventh-highest spot of the event’s all-time record speeds.
Her plans in 2016:
“In the next year, definitely the biggest moment will be the Olympic trials, which is held in the first couple of weeks in July. Once that’s over, and hopefully I make the Olympic team, I’ll have made my lifetime dream of being an Olympian. It would mean the world. I remember when I first started running, always having that goal of being an Olympian. I tried out in 2012, and I wasn’t as good in my event then. To look back at that and to know that I have a chance now? It means everything.”
“She’s just an awesome young woman … It’s been really exciting to see her have such breakthroughs in her performances and at the same time just be the same humble Jasmin she’s always been. She’s definitely a person one would have to favor to make a run at making the U.S. Olympic team for Rio.”
—Dennis Shaver, LSU track and field head coach
