Keileen Cedeno

Happy birthday to Puerto Rico’s sprinter Keileen Cedeño, who races the full Puerto Rican calendar from January to July and has been a fixture in national championship sprint finals.

Keileen opened this year in February by running 7.77 over 60m at the national short-course championships in Toa Baja, a personal best. Outdoors she has run 12.19 over 100m at Mayagüez in April with the wind behind her, and 12.32 in the heats at Las Justas. Her lifetime bests stand at 12.14 for 100m and 25.27 for 200m, and she has been third in the 100m at the Puerto Rican Championships in each of the last two years.

What her results actually show is a season built like a professional’s. She races the three LAI qualifying rounds through February, March and April to earn her place at Las Justas, then the collegiate championships themselves, then the federation’s Road to National circuit, then the Puerto Rican Championships in June. That is San Germán, Gurabo, Carolina, Mayagüez, Toa Baja and Isabela — essentially the whole island — across five months without a break. Very few sprinters anywhere sustain that many competitive rounds in a year.

She runs for the Universidad de Puerto Rico en Carolina, and her home track is the Pista Basilio Rodríguez in Carolina. Las Justas is the great event of the Puerto Rican sporting year, a collegiate championship with the atmosphere of a national final, and getting there requires clearing three qualifying rounds first. She has done it every season.

¡Feliz cumpleaños, Keileen! Que tengas mucha salud, mucha alegría y un año lleno de bendiciones y de carreras rápidas. ¡Que lo disfrutes! 🎂🎁🎉🫶🫶🇵🇷