INDIANAPOLIS — For the first time since 2019, hundreds of the top U20 track and field athletes in America will gather to compete for USATF national titles, with the added incentive of berths on the team that will travel to Cali, Colombia, in August for the World Athletics U20 Championships. Competition gets under way late Thursday morning at Hayward Field on the campus of the University of Oregon with finals in the men’s and women’s hammer and the first day’s events in the heptathlon and decathlon. Three other finals are also slated for that day – women’s javelin and men’s and women’s 5,000m. The meet continues through Friday and Saturday, with 21 finals scheduled for late afternoon Saturday.
Jordan Anthony and Iyana Gray hold the top spots on the 100m and 200m entry lists and are ranked in the world U20 top 10 in 2022. Gray clocked 11.22 and 22.78 for the University of Texas-Arlington and was an NCAA semifinalist in the 200m. Her top challengers include South Carolina’s Jayla Jamison and local favorite Mia Brahe-Pedersen, a double Oregon high school champion for Lake Oswego. All-arounder Shawnti Jackson is the daughter of 400m hurdles great Bershawn “Batman” Jackson and swept North Carolina 4A state titles in the 100m, 200m and 400m. Anthony won Mississippi state high school titles in both sprints after capturing Nike Indoor Nationals crowns in the 60m and 200m. His 10.14 and 20.52 bests make him a strong favorite for the sprint double here, though Connor Washington of Arkansas is a solid contender in the 200m with a best of 20.60. Baylor’s Laurenz Colbert was eighth in the Big 12 200m and helped his school to an All-America finish in the NCAA 4x100m relay final. Collegians dominate the 400m entries, with Cincinnati’s Steven McElroy the fastest man at 45.57 and Coastal Carolina’s Mekenze Kelley the top woman at 51.98. McElroy won the American Conference one-lap gold and was an NCAA semifinalist, while Kelley was the Sun Belt champion and also a semifinalist at the NCAA meet. Oklahoma State’s Charlie Bartholomew was eighth in the Big 12 men’s final and Texas A&M’s Ashton Schwartzman was an SEC finalist before helping the Aggies to a fifth-place finish in the NCAA men’s 4x400m relay.
Two prep superstars are among the marquee athletes at the Championships, and the women’s 800m promises to be compelling because of their presence. Juliette Whittaker came oh-so-close to breaking the national high school record earlier this year with a 1:59.80 in New York City, becoming only the second prep woman to dip under 2:00. Wisconsin state champion Roisin Willis almost joined Whittaker in that club with a 2:00.03 clocking, and that duo will have LSU’s SEC runner-up Michaela Rose to push them with her lifetime best of 2:02.49. Similarly close to the men’s high school national record, Will Sumner of Woodstock, Georgia, came within .08 of that mark with his 1:46.53 and he has sub-46 open 400m speed. Princeton’s Samuel Rodman and Miles Brown of Michigan will provide plenty of push for Sumner, with both owning sub-1:48 bests. In the men’s, 1,500m NCAA seventh-place finisher Nathan Green moved to No. 3 on the all-time U.S. U20 performer list with his 3:37.46 in the semifinal and will be tough to beat based on his collegiate form. Wake Forest’s Muluken Tewalt and high school sub-4:00 miler Connor Burns have been faster than 3:42 this season and are in the hunt. Virginia’s Mia Barnett is several seconds faster than the nearest challenger on the women’s metric mile, sporting a best of 4:11.32, but Ellie Shea and Addison Wiley are extremely accomplished high schoolers poised for big breakthroughs. Indiana state champ Wiley recently ran 4:26.16 for 1,600m, the fastest high school time ever at that distance, and Shea has a 4:14.35 to her credit to accompany a runner-up finish in the two miles at the Nike Outdoor Nationals.
Shea is also one of the favorites in the women’s 3,000m and 5,000m, bringing in the top times in both events. She has a 9:08.54 3km best and is the only woman who has broken 16:00 in the longer race, going 15:49.47 to win the New Balance Indoor Nationals. Heidi Nielson of Arkansas was one of the nation’s top preps last year and will vie with Shea at both distances, with Kate Peters also a threat at 3,000m. Local favorite Tyrone Gorze of Crater High School in Central Point, Oregon, has both speed and strength and has one of the top prep 10,000m times ever at 29:29.92, taking over the No. 6 spot on that all-time performer list. Gorze won Oregon state gold in the 3,000m and was runner-up in the 1,500m. His 14:00.34 in the 5,000m puts him two seconds ahead of Justin Wachtel of the University of Virginia. Lucas Guerra of Georgetown has the top men’s 3,000m entry time at 8:04.98. Air Force freshman Bryce Lentz was the Mountain West 3,000m steeplechase champion and made the NCAA semifinal. Lentz has a best of 8:39.73, putting him fifth on the all-time U.S. U20 performer list. LSU’s Addison Stevenson is the best of the women’s steeplechasers, coming in with a 10:18.07 from the Mt. SAC Relays.
Sixth at the Pac-12 Championships in the women’s 100m hurdles, USC’s Jalaysiya Smith went on to set a lifetime best of 13.05 in the NCAA semifinal, a time that puts her well ahead of the rest of the women’s sprint hurdle field. Big 12 bronze medalist Johnny Brackins sits atop the men’s 110m hurdles list at 13.62 over the 42” barriers, with 16-year-old high schooler Andre Korbmacher capturing titles at the Nike Outdoor Nationals in the 110H (13.44) and New Balance Indoor Nationals 60H (7.70). The international U20 hurdle height matches the U.S. high school barriers, so Korbmacher might have a slight edge over collegian Brackins. Multi-talented Michaela Rose of LSU clocked 57.62 in the 400m hurdles to go with her 800m exploits and matches up well with North Carolina high school star Akala Garrett, who won Nike Outdoor Nationals gold in both hurdle events and has a best of 57.46 in the longer race. Garrett swept the North Carolina 4A state titles in the 100H and 300H. Some of the nation’s top men’s high school 300m hurdlers will try to transition to the longer race distance, led by Texas 5A champion Kody Blackwood, who has a 36.14 PR. Blackwood also finished as the runner-up in the 110H at the state meet and ran 53.23 for 400H last year. Devontae Ford of Illinois was eighth in the Big Ten 400H and has run 51.27.
Angelica Harris and Ryan Allen have the top 10km times entering the Championships, and Harris competed for Team USATF at the World Athletics Race Walking Team Championships in Oman in March along with Heather Durrant. Harris won the Penn Relays 5km walk title, while Allen won the 3km walk event at the Nike Outdoor Nationals last week. In the women’s race, Ukraine’s Valeriya Sholomitska will compete as a guest and was fourth at the World Athletics Race Walking Team Championships. She has a lifetime best of 46:20.91 and clocked 48:53 in Oman.
With five women entering with bests of 6-0 or higher, the high jump will be ultra-competitive. North Carolina 4A state champion Cheyla Scott has scaled 6-2 this year and won the Nike and New Balance indoor national meets. Miracle Ailes won the NJCAA national title in the long jump for Iowa Western Community College and was the Drake Relays high jump champ. She has cleared 6-0.75, the same height as JaiCieonna Gero-Holt, a Washington high schooler. Pole vault fortunes are in the able hands of the Moll sisters from Washington state. Amanda Moll is one of the top U20 vaulters in history, bettering the U.S. record with her 4.51m/14-9.5 PR. Sister Hana Moll has gone over 4.47m/14-8, but those two have to watch out for Oklahoma’s Olivia Lueking, the Big 12 champion with a 4.46m/14-7.5 best. Penn’s James Rhoads was third in the Ivy League and has cleared 5.32m/17-5.5. A clear favorite in the men’s long jump is Big 12 champion Johnny Brackins, who is also ranked atop the 110H field. Brackins jumped 8.06m/26-5.5 to win the conference title for Baylor and then qualified for the NCAA Championships. In the men’s triple jump, Minnesota’s Floyd Whittaker was fifth in the Big Ten and jumped 15.68m/51-5.5 indoors. Texas high schooler Jarvis Anderson is one of the top triple jumpers in the nation with a windy best of 51-1, but more impressively he was on the U.S. team for the 2022 Deaflympics in Brazil in May, placing third in the 400m hurdles with a Junior World Deaf Record of 52.57.
Rhode Island’s Tarik O’Hagan and Matthew Rueff of Texas are two of the top three high school shot putters in 2022 and will test their skills with the slightly heavier U20 implement that weighs just over a pound more than the U.S. high school shot. Cade Moran, the California state champion in the shot and silver medalist in the discus, is a double threat and has thrown 207-4 in the discus, while Jeremiah Nubbe won Washington state golds in the shot, discus and hammer and has matched Moran’s distance in the distance. Nubbe has the top entry mark in the hammer at 74.80m/245-5, with O’Hagan just behind at 73.24m/240-3. In the men’s javelin, Monmouth’s Evan Niedrowski is far ahead of his fellow competitors with a 71.42m/234-4 PR and an 11th-place finish at the NCAA Championships. Collegians Amelia Flynt of California and Chrystal Herpin of Texas lead the women’s shot put and discus entries. Flynt was seventh in the shot at the Pac-12 Championships and has thrown 16.53m/54-2.75, and Herpin notched her discus best of 55.66m/182-7 in winning the LSU Invitational. Texas high schooler Madeleine Fey is the top American prep in the discus at 54.75m/179-7. Patriot League champion Emily Fink of Army West Point has a hammer best of 63.60m/208-8 and is more than 10 feet ahead of her nearest challenger. Charlotte’s Elizabeth Bailey was the Conference USA silver medalist in the javelin and leads all entrants with a 51.09m/167-7. NCAA Division II heptathlon bronze medalist Blakelee Winn of Pittsburg State tallied a best of 5,518 points at the national meet and also ran on her school’s fourth-place 4x100m relay. She will go up against Ariel Pedigo of Oklahoma, who was seventh in the Big 12 and has a lifetime best of 5,493 from 2021 that tied her for seventh on the all-time high school performer list. Idaho high schooler Landon Helms recently won the men’s decathlon at the Nike Outdoor Nationals with a score of 7,051 points and is a very strong hurdler and pole vaulter. Follow along as the best young athletes compete with live results here. A full schedule of events can be found here. Join the conversation with USATF on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook using the hashtag #USATFU20. Photo Credit: Archbishop Carroll High School