Grant Holloway, Rai Benjamin in class of their own in men’s hurdles at U.S. Olympic trials
EUGENE, Ore. — The world record in the men's 110-meter hurdles has stood for nearly a decade. The mark in the 400 hurdles has been practically untouchable, going all the way back to 1992.
But on a balmy night at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials Saturday, both of those records nearly fell — and in the span of just 45 minutes.
In a dominant back-to-back display, 110-meter hurdler Grant Holloway and 400-meter hurdler Rai Benjamin each came a fraction of a second away from immortality at Hayward Field, cruising to victory in their respective finals — and showing why the United States likely will be favored to sweep the men's hurdles events at the Tokyo Olympics.
Holloway, the 23-year-old Florida product, was agonizingly close to breaking Aries Merritt's world record in his semifinal heat, finishing one-hundredth of a second behind the all-time mark with a time of 12.81 seconds. He went on to win the final with a time of 12.96.
.@Flaamingoo_ was a HUNDREDTH of second from the world record in the SEMIS! 😱@usatf | #TrackFieldTrials21 x #TokyoOlympicspic.twitter.com/s8LyIkcJ7K
Benjamin, meanwhile, won the final in the 400-meter hurdles by more than a full second, with a time of 46.83. He was just .05 seconds off the world record set by Kevin Young nearly five years before Benjamin, 23, was born.
"I looked at it and I was like, 'Dang, man. Point zero five,' " Benjamin said with a smile. "It hurts a little bit to know that it was right there and I couldn't grab it. But it's just more fuel for the fire, man. It'll come when it comes."
For Holloway, flirting with the record was neither surprising nor particularly emotional. He said he had a feeling after his preliminary round that he could accomplish something special. It just came down to execution.
"I wasn't pressing for the record," Holloway said. "The main goal was just to set myself up and to let everyone know that I'm here to win. I told everybody in my first interview: I didn't come to this party to sit on the wall. I came to this party to dance."
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