Tampa teen breaks Bolt’s under-20 record in 200
Erriyon Knighton, a 17-year-old from Tampa, turned in the fastest time in the semifinal round of the men’s 200 meters Friday at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials.
He finished in a personal-best 19.88 seconds in a heat that included world champion Noah Lyles. The Adidas-backed Knighton will have a chance to earn a spot to the Tokyo Games on Sunday as the trials conclude.
Knighton broke the under-20 world record that Usain Bolt set in 2004. Bolt, the retired Jamaican sensation, has the overall world record of 19.19.
Knighton was also a wide receiver at Hillsborough High School, butshut down any speculation he would consider playing football in college.
“Nah,” Knighton said. “Not an option of mine to go play football.”
Elsewhere: The U.S. track and field trials came to a halt Sunday afternoon with temperatures reaching 108 degrees in Eugene, Oregon. One athlete, heptathlete Taliyah Brooks, was carted off the field in a wheelchair but was “OK,” her agent said.
Fans were filing into the stadium for the headline events of the final day of Olympic qualifying when, at around 3 p.m., the track announcer came onto the PA system and said action was being suspended due to extreme heat. He asked all spectators to evacuate.
Brooks was in fourth place after five of the seven events of the heptathlon, which is considered among the most grueling contests in track and field. She had been listed as a “DNS“– did not start – in the sixth event, the javelin. Her agent,
Tony Campbell, said she had hopes of returning in the evening to compete.
The program was scheduled to resume at 8:30 p.m. PDT. Among those still waiting to secure spots in the Olympics were Noah Lyles in the men’s 200, and Dalilah Muhammad and Sydney McLaughlin, who were set to face off in the women’s 400-meter hurdles.
Earlier, JuVaughn Harrison won the high jump, contested under cloudless skies in 105degree temperatures. Harrison was also entered in the long jump, which had been pushed back to the evening.
The men’s 5,000 meters took place at 10 a.m. in a nod to the forecast, which since early last week had predicted tripledigits over the weekend. In temperatures reaching 90 degrees on the track,
Paul Chelimo fended off a pair of runners for a .19-second victory.
“Honestly,” Chelimo said, “I wanted it a bit hotter.”
Tennis: Serena Williams will not compete in the Tokyo Olympics, the tennis star confirmed during her pre-Wimbledon video news conference Sunday morning.
She declined to say why she wasn’t participating, but Williams previously expressed concern about Olympic restrictions blocking athletes from bringing children and
child care assistance along to Tokyo due to concerns about the spread of the coronavirus in Japan.
When asked whether she planned to compete in Tokyo, Williams responded, “I’m actually not on the Olympic list. … Not that I’m aware of. If so, then I shouldn’t be on it.”
Williams, 39, has won four Olympic gold medals in singles and doubles play. She did not, however, medal at the Rio Olympics in 2016.
“There’s a lot of reasons that I made my Olympic decision,” Williams said ahead of her opening Wimbledon match set for
Tuesday. “I don’t really want to – I don’t feel like going into them today. Maybe another day. Sorry.”
Williams was asked before the Italian Open in May whether she would consider competing in Tokyo if the policy blocking her from bringing her 3-year-old daughter, Olympia, did not change.
“I haven’t really thought much about that. That’s a really good question,” Williams told reporters in Rome. “I haven’t spent 24 hours without her, so that kind of answers the question itself. We’re best friends.”
Williams – who has qualified for a spot on the U.S. team – also said the Grand Slam schedule would be a factor she would consider while weighing Olympic participation.
Tokyo Olympics tennis play begins July 24, 14 days after the Wimbledon women’s final, and ends Aug. 1, 29 days before the U.S. Open begins.
Williams is seeking her 24th Grand Slam.
Basketball: Rick Pitino professes to knowing three Greek words: Kalimera, kalispera and kalinichta, which translate to good morning, good afternoon and good night.
Luckily for the Hall of Famer, basketball is a universal language.
The Iona College coach – formerly of Providence, Louisville, Kentucky, the New York Knicks and the Boston Celtics, among other stops – is also the coach of the Greek men’s national team, which begins play Tuesday in one of the four remaining Olympic qualifying tournaments that will determine the last four spots in the men’s field for the Tokyo Games.
Greece hasn’t been to the Olympics in men’s basketball since 2008, and it is a bit of a long shot to get there this year – in part because the country’s best player, two-time NBA
MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo, is otherwise engaged at the moment with the Milwaukee Bucks in the Eastern Conference finals, along with his brother Thanasis Antetokounmpo.
“It would be great for the players who play in Greece,” said Pitino, who has never been to an Olympics, not even as a fan. “It’s been a long time since they’ve gotten there. Having Giannis and Thanasis would certainly have been a big deal for us, but this is about these players more than it is about me.”
Greece plays Canada on Tuesday in the first game of the qualifier in Victoria, British Columbia, then faces China on Thursday. It'll need to win at least one of those games to move into the semifinals; the other three teams competing there are Uruguay, Turkey and the Czech Republic.