Teenage sensation clocks fourth fastest 200m time

NEW YORK. - Erriyon Knighton became the fourth-fastest man over 200m as he clocked 19.49 seconds at the LSU Invitational.

The American, 18, broke his under-20 world record by 0.35 seconds in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Only world record holder Usain Bolt (19.19), fellow Jamaican Yohan Blake (19.26) and American Michael Johnson (19.32) have ever set faster times.

Knighton’s mark is the eighth-fastest 200m time overall and the quickest since Bolt won the 2012 Olympics final.

Bolt beat 19.5 seconds on four occasions, doing so for the first time aged 21, while Blake has done it twice and Johnson did it once in setting the then-world record at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.

Knighton’s speed, 6ft 3in frame, sure hands and aggression had the country’s best college football programmes - Alabama, Florida State, Tennessee and others - preparing offers.

But, as the pandemic bit, the points switched.

Knighton was sent down a different path.

“It could have gone differently if high school season was still going,” he told BBC Sport. “I probably would still have been playing football if I would’ve had that extra year.”

Instead, as school gridiron grew cold amid an enforced shutdown, a 16-year-old Knighton focused on his side hustle: track.

He had been sprinting for a little over a year, after being encouraged to do so by his football coach as a way to sharpen his game as a wide receiver.

“I only started running track in the ninth grade,” Knighton remembered.

“Before then you could have

asked me what 100m was and I wouldn’t have known. I knew nothing about track.

“By the end of that year, I realised that I was kind of separated from the pack and faster than most people.”

And they have never caught up.

Knighton, unable to compete locally because of lockdowns, took part in the nationwide Junior Olympics, just a couple of months after posting his latest football highlights video online.

Running in 200m against other 16-year-olds, he stormed home in 20.33 seconds.

From then on, Knighton was destined to be wearing spikes, rather than shoulder pads.

But his decision to turn professional in January 2021, still aged just 16, was a big one. He could no longer compete for his school. He could no longer take up university scholarship offers.

He was straying off a wellworn path to the top. There were murmurs that it was too much, too soon.

Hubris fed by hype. - BBC