17-year-old Erryon Knighton, Youngest Olympic Track Contender


On the Olympic track, 17-year-old Erryon Knighton creates a sensation. He broke Usain Bolt’s under-18 record in the 200m in May, and beat Bolt’s under-20 record in June, defeating 24-year-old Noah Lyles, the reigning world champion in two races at the Olympic trials.

But at Hillsborough High in Tampa, Fla., where we’re both seniors, she’s just another student, just Erryon. He walks the aisles, tall and thin and childlike. He wears Adidas clothes as the company sponsors him, but he usually doesn’t pay much attention to himself.

Erryon’s friends say he’s funny and likes to mess around. They still laugh at the time he nearly burned down the house while trying to make a funnel cake out of pancake batter.

“He’s a quiet, normal, ordinary high school kid,” said his friend, Nigel Richardson. “And he cares about people. He wouldn’t want to see anyone down there.”

Erryon, who will run the 200 meters Tuesday (Monday night in the USA), is the United States’ youngest male track and field athlete at the Olympics since 1964. He started running on the track just three years ago, when Hillsborough’s football coach asked him to join. high school team.

Football teammate Jordaan Bailey said he knew Erryon had track potential.

“He scored when he first caught the game,” Bailey said. “I don’t think it was touched.”

In August 2020, Erryon ran the 200 in 20.33 seconds at the Junior Olympics. His track career began. He started giving interviews to the media and did what he said was a six-figure sponsorship deal with adidas, and some of that went to helping his mother, Shamika Knighton, pay the bills. He gave up his high school and college track and field eligibility to seal the deal, but eventually wants to go to college with the thought of studying medicine.

Bailey said in FaceTime conversations during the Olympic trials that he was confident about how well Erryon would do, even though he was competing with some of the fastest men in the world. That made sense to Bailey.

“He’s always been calm,” Bailey said. “It never bends under pressure.”

I got the same impression when I interviewed Erryon. our high school newspaper Earlier this year their performances continued to improve and their Olympic hopes began to come true.

“I just am,” said Erryon. “I’m cold, like I’m a normal person.”



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