
Her personal best is 23.01 seconds, a Philippine national record.
“My goal is to go sub-23 (seconds),” Knott told the Tokyo Olympics official website days before the pandemic-hit Games opened on July 23.
The 200-meters field parades many of the world’s best, including the US’s Gabrielle Thomas, who owns a 21.61-second mark in the race. Also in the mix are the Bahamas’s Shaunae Miller-Uibo (21.47) and Jamaica’s Elaine Thompson Herah (21.66).
In Knott’s heat, five of her rivals have sub-23 times.
There are seven heats for the event and Knott knows all those times of training are thrown out the window come the start gun.
She prepared for Tokyo under her coach Rohsaan Griffin and strength and conditioning coach Carlo Buzzichelli.
“At this point, you should have given everything you and everything you worked, and it will hopefully show at the competition,” Knott added.