Reese Webster US Fan Club! (Trinidad & Tobago, @sahara__05)

Running for Home: The Definitive Profile of Reese Sahara Webster, Trinidad & Tobago’s Rising Sprint Star

In the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago, speed is practically a cultural inheritance. The twin-island republic has produced a remarkable concentration of elite sprinters relative to its population, and the country’s track and field tradition runs as deep as its steel pan rhythms and Carnival energy. Reese Sahara Webster, a sprinter from San Juan, Trinidad and Tobago, is one of the latest members of that lineage — a determined, record-setting athlete who has carved her own path through American collegiate athletics while never losing sight of her ultimate goal: representing her country on the world stage and beyond. Born May 21, 2002, Webster is a daughter of Simon and Akai Webster, a sibling in a track-and-field family, and a young woman who has quietly become one of the most quietly impressive sprinters her country has produced in her generation.

San Juan Beginnings: Growing Up Fast in Trinidad

San Juan is a busy, densely populated suburb just east of Port of Spain, Trinidad’s capital city. It is the kind of place where communities are tight and sporting culture is woven into daily life. Reese Webster grew up there alongside her siblings — two sisters, Roriel and Renelle, and a brother, Revell — in a household shaped by the work ethic of her parents. When asked about inspiration, Webster has consistently pointed to her mother: “She works hard for what she wants and gets everything she deserves and more because of it.”

Webster attended Bishop Anstey High School, one of Trinidad’s most prestigious secondary schools, located in Port of Spain. Bishop Anstey has a long tradition of producing academically and athletically accomplished graduates, and it was there that Webster’s sprinting gifts began to crystallize in a more structured environment. She also competed for the Concorde Athletic Club, one of Trinidad and Tobago’s prominent track clubs, which would provide the competitive framework that helped refine her natural speed.

Her own account of her athletic development is refreshingly candid. For a significant period, she was essentially running on raw talent — no formalized technique, no strength training, no serious coaching infrastructure. “When I finally got in a club, I got better because I was just running off natural talent with no technique, no form, no gym, no strength,” she said in a 2024 interview. The formal coaching environment of Concorde AC transformed her from a gifted-but-unpolished sprinter into an athlete with real national and international potential. She graduated from Bishop Anstey in 2020 — the year the world stood still — and set her sights on continuing her athletic career in the United States.

Her younger brother Revell, who would eventually follow her to Liberty University, has spoken about how Reese’s path through the sport inspired his own: she was the trailblazer, the one who first demonstrated what was possible when that raw Caribbean speed met disciplined training. The fact that both siblings ended up at the same college program is a testament to the bond between them as well as the institutional confidence in the Webster family’s athletic lineage.

College Chapter One: Elon University and Immediate Impact

Webster arrived at Elon University in North Carolina in the fall of 2022, competing in the Colonial Athletic Association. As a true freshman, she immediately established herself as one of the conference’s premier sprinters. Indoors during the 2022-23 season, she was named to the All-CAA squad in the 60 meters after placing third at the CAA Indoor Championships in a school-record time of 7.57 seconds — a time she had qualified for with a 7.66-second preliminary run. She also collected the CAA Track Athlete of the Week award in February 2023 following her school-record-breaking 60 performance. She won the 60 at both the Mondo College Invitational (7.64) and the JDL DMR Invitational (7.60), consistently demonstrating that she was not merely a good sprinter for Elon, but a genuine CAA contender.

Outdoors in spring 2023, she went further. She won the CAA Championship in the 100 meters with a school-record time of 11.70 seconds, and was part of the winning 4×100 relay team that clocked a school-record 44.91. She also placed fourth in the CAA 200, and her best outdoor 200 time of 23.88 showed that her event range extended beyond the shorter sprint. She was named CAA Co-Rookie of the Year for the outdoor season — an honor that recognized just how thoroughly she had dominated the freshman landscape in her conference.

But Webster knew she was capable of more. She had broken every record Elon had to offer in short order, and she recognized that her ceiling was well above what the CAA could measure. “I just knew that my talent was more than Elon,” she said. “But at the end of the day, I needed to put in that hard work to get myself to the next level.” Bigger ambitions required a bigger stage.

The Transfer to Liberty: Record-Shattering in Blue and White

Reese Webster transferred to Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, ahead of the 2023-24 academic year, joining the Lady Flames’ track program. Liberty is a school with a strong track and field tradition, and the move came with a family dimension: her brother Revell was being recruited simultaneously, and both Websters arrived together to the Hill City. The sibling dynamic added a layer of warmth and support that both have credited as crucial to their transition. “When we get to Lynchburg, it’s like a little circle of Trinidad,” Revell once remarked. In addition to the Websters, the Liberty program featured fellow Trinidadians Omari and Akilah Lewis, creating a mini-Caribbean community within the athletics department that became a source of comfort for all four athletes far from home.

Webster described what drew her to Liberty in notably warm terms. The landscape of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, she said, reminded her of home. “The scenery just reminded me of home with the mountains and greenery,” she said. “It felt like an easy transition and I was able to feel like myself here at Liberty.”

What followed in her first Liberty indoor season (2023-24) was a sustained record-breaking performance that the program had rarely seen. She reset Liberty’s 60-meter and 200-meter records a total of nine times over the course of the indoor season, steadily pushing the marks lower competition by competition. She won the 60 at all four of her indoor competitions that season — the Virginia Tech Invitational, the Liberty Open, the Darius Dixon Memorial Invitational, and, most importantly, the Conference USA Championship. She also won the 200 at three of those four meets. Her final marks were 7.31 seconds in the 60 (set in the CUSA 60 prelims) and 23.27 seconds in the 200 (CUSA 200 final). The CUSA title in the 60 was Liberty’s first in that event, and Webster had won it on her first try. She was named CUSA Female Track Athlete of the Week in February 2024, the first of what would become multiple such honors.

The outdoor 2024 season added more hardware. She placed third in the CUSA 100 final (11.32 seconds) and second in the CUSA 200 final (23.22 seconds) — both No. 2 marks in program history at that time. Her 11.24-second run in the CUSA 100 prelims was also a No. 2 program mark. She qualified as an individual to the NCAA Division I East First Round in the 100 meters. By every measure, Webster had become one of Conference USA’s premier sprinters in her first season with the Flames.

The Bahamas, the Olympic Dream, and the Injury That Wasn’t Supposed to Happen

The spring of 2024 brought what would become the most memorable — and bittersweet — chapter of Webster’s career to that point. In early May 2024, she was named to Trinidad and Tobago’s women’s 4×100 relay squad for the World Athletics Relays, held at Thomas A. Robinson National Stadium in Nassau, Bahamas. The stakes could not have been higher: the top two finishers in each relay heat would earn automatic Olympic qualifying spots for Paris 2024.

On Day 1 (May 4), Webster ran the second leg as Trinidad and Tobago clocked 43.22 seconds alongside teammates Taejha Badal, Michelle-Lee Ahye, and Leah Bertrand — an impressive performance, but not enough for automatic qualification from that heat. The team had to come back the next day in the second-round qualifying heat. On Day 2 (May 5), in a race alongside Badal, Reyare Thomas, and Bertrand, Webster again ran the second leg and the squad clocked 43.54 seconds. Jamaica won the heat at 42.74; Trinidad and Tobago crossed second — good enough for the second and final automatic Olympic qualifying berth from the heat. The Paris Olympics were booked.

Webster later called the moment her most memorable athletic accomplishment. “The World athletics competition in the Bahamas representing my country, where I helped them qualify for the Olympics,” she said flatly when asked to name it. There is no hesitation in that answer — helping send her nation to its sixth consecutive Olympics in the women’s 4×100 relay was, for her, the moment that crystallized what her career was for.

But the story took a painful turn before the Paris Games opened. Like her teammate Omari Lewis, who suffered a hamstring injury at Olympic trials, Webster’s road to Paris was derailed by injury, and she was not part of the T&T squad that competed at Stade de France in August 2024. She was supposed to be there. She had earned her spot. The injury that kept her out was, as the Liberty Journal put it with considerable understatement, “a hard pill to swallow.” Webster herself has been both honest and forward-looking about it: “I was about to be in the Olympics, and that was not even me at my peak yet,” she said. The implication is clear — Paris was supposed to be a beginning, not an end.

Senior Year at Liberty: Still Pushing Forward

After returning from the injury setback, Webster continued her collegiate career at Liberty for the 2024-25 academic year. Indoors, she again contended at the CUSA level, placing second in both the 60 (7.32 seconds) and the 200 (23.11 seconds) at the 2025 Conference USA Indoor Championships — the 23.11 setting a new Liberty indoor 200 record and a new personal best on any surface in the event. Her 7.30 in the 60 at the Darius Dixon Memorial Invitational was another personal best, setting Liberty’s indoor 60 record. Outdoors, she placed second in the CUSA 100 (11.37 seconds) at the 2025 championships and ran a 23.14 200 at the Florida Relays — tied for CUSA’s fastest 200 of the entire outdoor season. She won the 100 and 200 at the Virginia High Performance meet in convincing fashion — beating a 2024 CAA runner-up in the 100 and a 2024 NCAA quarterfinalist in the 200 — and was named CUSA Track Athlete of the Week in April 2025. At the 2025 CUSA Outdoor Championships she finished second in the 100 final (11.37) and contributed to Liberty’s team title — the Lady Flames’ third consecutive conference championship trophy. Her personal best in the 100 continued to fall: she ran 11.26 at the NCAA Division I East First Rounds, a new career best in wind-legal conditions.

The Final Chapter: Auburn and the SEC

For her senior season in 2025-26, Webster made one final transfer — this time to Auburn University in Alabama, stepping into one of college track and field’s most storied environments. Auburn competes in the Southeastern Conference, a circuit that routinely features Olympic-level talent, and the move represented the clearest possible statement about where Webster believed her abilities placed her. She was joined at Auburn by her fellow Trinidadian Omari Lewis, who also transferred from Liberty — the Commonwealth connection traveling south together.

Her Auburn debut was immediate and impressive. At the UAB Blazer Invite in Birmingham in January 2026, she won the women’s 60 meters final in 7.29 seconds, breaking her personal best by a hundredth of a second, and swept the sprint double with a 23.48 in the 200. She followed that with three podium appearances in her first four Auburn competitions. At the Bob Pollock Invitational at Clemson, she set another personal best in the 60, clocking 7.25 — placing 15th nationally at that point in the season. At the Tiger Paw Invitational in February, she pushed to 7.24 seconds in the 60 meters, establishing what stood as a career best. At the SEC Indoor Championships in College Station, Texas, she clocked 7.26 in the 60 preliminary round, competing against some of the best sprinters in American collegiate athletics in the most competitive conference in the country.

Outdoors in spring 2026, she opened with a sweep of the 100 and 200 at the Yellow Jacket Invitational at Georgia Tech, clocking 11.40 and 23.35 — the latter ranking No. 7 nationally at that early point in the season. She also ran a personal-best 200 of 23.05 at Auburn’s own Tiger Track Classic in late April, becoming the No. 10 performer in Auburn history in the women’s 200 and establishing a new personal best in the outdoor event. She was honored as part of Auburn’s senior class recognition on Senior Day at the same meet.

The 2026 SEC Outdoor Championships were held on Auburn’s own Hutsell-Rosen Track, and Webster competed in the 200-meter prelims, clocking 23.90. The step up to SEC level competition in her final collegiate season has pushed her against the very best American collegiate sprinters — a fitting challenge for a young woman who has consistently sought out the next, harder test throughout her career.

Faith, Family, and Identity

Webster’s athletic career cannot be fully understood apart from the values and relationships that animate it. She has described her faith as a central pillar — she listed checking the Bible app as the first thing she does on her phone each day. The Liberty University environment, which places faith at the center of student-athlete development, was clearly a good fit for someone who sees her sport through a lens of purpose larger than medals and times.

Her mother remains her primary inspiration. “She works hard for what she wants and gets everything she deserves and more because of it,” Webster has said — a description that sounds a great deal like the way observers would describe Webster herself. Her father, Simon, and her mother, Akai, have watched their children thrive thousands of miles from home in San Juan, a source of quiet pride for a family that has given two children — and possibly more — to the ranks of competitive American collegiate athletics.

The Webster-Lewis cohort at Liberty — Reese, Revell, Omari, and Akilah — became something of a beacon for other Trinidadian athletes considering American universities. Their combined success, their shared faith, and their obvious bond with one another created an environment that Liberty coaches have described as the perfect combination of fun, hard work, and mutual accountability. When Assistant Coach Kristian Dillard was asked about the Websters, he said simply: “The good thing about Revell and Reese is what you see is what you get. They are open, they are loving, they are caring.”

Webster has also shown a distinctly human side in the details she shares about her life away from the track. She makes TikTok videos in her spare time. She has two Pitbull mix dogs named Hunter and Mini. She dreams of visiting the Bahamas — “because the beaches are to die for.” Her favorite food is traditional Trinidad Christmas cooking: “lasagna, pastels, ham, lamb and mixed rice and pigeon.” She grew up idolizing Florence Griffith Joyner, the American sprint legend known as Flo-Jo, whose combination of blazing speed and unforgettable personal style made her the most iconic sprinter of the 1980s. The inspiration is apt: Webster runs the 100 and 200 with the kind of fluidity and power that recalls what made Flo-Jo transcendent.

When the noise of competition and expectation gets loud, Webster says she doesn’t try to tune it out — she uses it. “I’m not one to cancel out the noise. The noise just pushes me forward,” she said. “When I feel like I have a point to prove and I need to get there, I’m going to do it.”

Social Media and NIL

Reese Webster is active on Instagram under the handle @sahara_05 — named for her middle name, Sahara — where she documents her competitive and personal life. No major commercial sponsorship arrangements have been publicly confirmed, though she has been listed as available for NIL partnerships through Liberty’s Opendorse platform during her time with the Flames. No current sponsorships at Auburn have been confirmed publicly.

Looking Ahead: Los Angeles 2028 and the Professional Road

Webster has been explicit about her aspirations. The Paris Olympics that she helped qualify for — and then missed due to injury — have sharpened rather than diminished her hunger. “I definitely have a shot at making it next time,” she has said, looking toward Los Angeles 2028. “Los Angeles is a huge goal.”

She has also spoken about the professional track circuit as a post-collegiate destination: “I saw some of the best PRs I’ve seen in my life in both indoor and outdoor, and I hope they continue to gradually decrease so I can eventually move on to the professional leagues. That was not a calling that came to me at first, but eventually, when I saw how far my talent could take me … I was about to be in the Olympics, and that was not even me at my peak yet.”

That phrase — “not even me at my peak yet” — is the most important thing Reese Webster has said about her own career. She is 23 years old, a senior in college, and she is already a World Athletics Relays participant, an Olympic qualifier for her country, a multi-conference champion, and a record-holder at three different universities. And she believes — with good reason — that the best is still ahead.

Career Highlights at a Glance

• Full name: Reese Sahara Webster
• Date of birth: May 21, 2002
• Hometown: San Juan, Trinidad and Tobago
• Nationality: Trinidad and Tobago
• High school: Bishop Anstey High School, Port of Spain
• Club (pre-college): Concorde Athletic Club
• College: Elon University (2022-23) → Liberty University (2023-25) → Auburn University (2025-26)
• Major: Business Administration: Finance
• Primary events: 100 meters, 200 meters, 60 meters (indoor)
• Height: 5 feet, 10 inches
• World Athletics ranking: #225 (Women’s 100m, 2025)

Personal Bests

Selected Competitive Record