Women in Bahamian History: Shaunae Miller-Uibo

 "Don’t ever let someone tell you that you cannot do something, once you set your mind to something go hard at it, keep working hard, and trust me everything is going to fall into place."

-Shaunae Miller-Uibo

Shaunae Miller-Uibo is a Bahamian-born track and field sprinter who competes in the 200 and 400 meters. She was born to Mabelene and Shaun Miller in Nassau, Bahamas. Shaunae started competing at a very young age but started to gain notarization at high school where she attended St. Augustine’s College then later took her talents to the University of Georgia. She won five medals at the 2007 Central American and Caribbean Age Group Championship in Athletics, in 2009 she won bronze with the relay team at the 2009 CARIFTA Game and the 2009 Pan American Junior Athletics Championship. In the following year at the same track meets she later claimed the 400 meters title, along with four additional medals in various relays. At just 16 years of age, she became the first Bahamian named the 400-meter champion at the 2010 World Junior Championships in Athletics and the youngest female to ever win the event. Miller-Uibo became the first athlete to ever hold both the Under20 and Under18 championship 400-meter titles concurrently at the 2011 World Youth Championships in Athletics.

In 2013 Shaunae signed to become a professional athlete, being sponsored by Adidas. In 2015 she made an impact at the top-level Athelissima and Memorial Van Damme meets, as she won the 400 meters. In the following year, Miller-Uibo competed and became the 400-meter champion in the 2016 Rio Olympics. She continued making history by being the first female to run under 22 seconds in the 200 meters at the 2017 Prefontaine Classic. She continued to dominate the 200 meters at various meets for the next several years. On 13 February 2021, Miller-Uibo broke the NACAC indoor 400 m record with a time of 50.21 seconds, set at the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix in New York. On 4 April, she opened her outdoor season with a world-leading time of 22.03 s, her fastest ever 200 m opener, set at the Pure Athletics Spring Invitational in Clermont, Florida. In March 2022, she claimed her first world title as a senior, winning the women's 400 m event at the World Indoor Championships in Belgrade with a time of 50.31 s, after her bronze indoor debut in 2014. Later that year in July, Miller-Uibo went on to secure her first senior world outdoor title at the World Championships Eugene 2022 in a time of 49.11 seconds, winning by nearly half a second in leading a Caribbean sweep. Afterward, she revealed that she is looking forward to changing her main discipline to the 200 meters and possibly heptathlon.

Miller met Maicel Uibo, an Estonian decathlete who won silver at the 2019 World Championships, in Georgia, and the pair married in 2017. On 4 February 2023, she announced her first pregnancy via Instagram. The baby, a son named Maicel Uibo Jr, was born on 20 April.