More high schooler madness!

[whaletail]

At the US Track & Field National Championships (World Team Trials), Cooper Lutkenhaus, a 16 year old sophomore finished 2nd in the men's 800m final, and will compete at the World Championships in Tokyo next month. He'll apparently be the youngest Team USA world teamer in history, and may be the most talented American middle distance runner since the great Jim Ryun 60 years ago.

Incredibly, he ran a 1:42.27, knocking 3s off his own U18 and U20 World Record (set last month at the Texas state meet). He's now the third fastest American ever, and only 1.4s off the world record (David Rudisha - Kenya - 1:40.9, set in the 2012 Olympic final). Mind, a few months ago, his personal best was a 1:47.x. Blisteringly fast for a high schooler, for sure, especially one who only started running competitively in 7th grade, but not world class.

1:42.27 would have won every World Championship final to date, as well as every Olympic final until last year.

 As an aside, he even managed to make Donovan Brazier's incredible comeback victory a sidestory. Brazier, the 2019 World Champion and one-time American record holder, only returned to racing in June, after injuring his achilles tendon at the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Trials. Injured until earlier this year, he was widely believed to be essentially retired until suddenly returning this summer.

 

[Doublehalf]

I'm starting to get a little more into T&F- my neighbor is actually the head coach at a local university and ironically also wrestled in high school the same time I did albeit in a different part of the state. But we are always keeping each other looped in on each other's current areas of interest.

[red viking]

Lots of pole vaulters are wrestlers.