U.S. Olympic Gold Medalist Bianca Knight On Launching The “BK Trackstars” App, Musical Preferences For Running & More

Bianca Knight didn’t even know what the lanes were for when she went to her first track practice at the age of 12, but she beat everyone anyway. Before long, she was dominating the Mississippi — and the national — high school scene, where she began competing as a seventh grader. By the time she graduated from Ridgeland High School in 2007, she had won 15 individual state titles at 100m, 200m and 400m among her 23 overall including relays. Knight would also own state high school records at 100m and 200m, and be the first Mississippian to be named Gatorade National Girls Track & Field Athlete Of The Year. In one of many incredible accomplishments to follow, Knight broke Veronica Campbell-Brown’s collegiate record for 200m indoors when she won the national title in 22.40.

Deciding to focus her full athletic attention on training for the 2008 Olympic team, Bianca Knight turned pro and, in her professional debut, ran 22.62 seconds to defeat Veronica Campbell-Brown at 200m in the Jamaica International Invitational. She set her 200m PB in winning the Reebok Grand Prix on May 31, and lowered her 100m PB in the quarterfinals of the Olympic Trials. But perhaps Knight’s greatest success so far was at the 2012 Olympic Games, where she ran an excellent third leg on the USA’s 4x100m Relay Team, which not only won gold going away, but shattered the world record, which had been held by East Germany since 1985. Since then, the U.S. Olympic gold medalist’s mission has been to promote excellence in youth track and field sports through clinics, competition meets and financial grants, while encouraging student athletes to give back to their communities.

This month Bianca Knight is launching an app and website called BK Trackstars, which will rank its athlete-users, gamify user improvement and utilize the latest in technology including artificial intelligence and expert input to help runners run faster. To do this, the BK Trackstars team assembled the most comprehensive database of track & field results in the United States from age 6 and up, as inclusive of over 40,000 teams and over 700,000 athletes, over 6,000 track meets, and over 4.5 million race-related results. On January 9, 2021, I had the pleasure of speaking with Knight via Zoom, as embedded below. We talked about BK Trackstars and plenty more within that chat, including what sort of music she does her running to when headphones are on and life outside of running.

More on Bianca Knight and BK Trackstars can be found online at www.bktrackstars.com, www.twitter.com/msbiancaak, www.instagram.com/bkfgives and www.bkfgives.org.

Bianca Knight IN THE NEWS #BKTRACKSTARS
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Posted by BK Trackstars on Friday, June 12, 2020

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Tags: Apps, Bianca Knight, BK Trackstars, Mississippi, The Bianca Knight Foundation, Track & Field, U.S. Olympians

About the Author

Darren Paltrowitz Darren Paltrowitz is a New York resident with over 20 years of entertainment industry experience. He began working around the music business as a teenager, interning for the manager of his then-favorite band Superdrag. Since then, he has worked with a wide array of artists including OK Go, They Might Be Giants, Mike Viola, Tracy Bonham, Loudness, Rachael Yamagata, and Amanda Palmer. Darren's writing has appeared in dozens of outlets including the New York Daily News, Inquisitr, The Daily Meal, The Hype Magazine, All Music Guide, Guitar World, TheStreet.com, Businessweek, Chicago Tribune, L.A. Times, and the Jewish Journal. Beyond being "Editor At Large" for The Hype Magazine, Darren is also the host of weekly "Paltrocast With Darren Paltrowitz" series, which airs on dozens on television and digital networks. He has also co-authored 2 published books, 2018's "Pocket Change: Your Happy Money" (Book Web Publishing) and 2019's "Good Advice From Professional Wrestling" (6623 Press), and co-hosts the world's only known podcast about David Lee Roth, "The DLR Cast."