NCAA CHAMPIONSHIPS | WHERE THEY STARTED
The athletes who broke records at Hayward Field this week were high schoolers not long ago. Their stories are worth telling from the beginning.
Ja'Kobe Tharp got cut from his seventh-grade basketball team in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, so he joined track to stay active. His coach at Rockvale pointed him at the hurdles. One year later he won the Tennessee middle school state title in the event. He went on to win the Tennessee high school state title as a junior and senior at Rockvale, with a personal best of 13.32 over the 39-inch prep barriers. On Wednesday in Track Town, Tharp ran 12.75 in the 110m hurdles semifinals - the first world record set at the NCAA Championships since 1976, breaking Aries Merritt's 12.80 that had stood since 2012.
Adaejah Hodge grew up in Douglasville, Georgia and attended Montverde Academy in Florida. She was a two-time Georgia High Schools Association Track and Field Athlete of the Year, won the high school indoor 200m world record with a 22.33 at New Balance Indoor Nationals in 2023, and won the New Balance Outdoor 200m title in 22.64. She competed for the British Virgin Islands at the 2024 Paris Olympics while still in high school. She competed at Brooks PR as a prep athlete. On Thursday at Hayward Field she ran 10.63 in the 100m prelims - breaking Sha'Carri Richardson's collegiate record and running the fifth-fastest 100m in history. On Saturday she came back and won the 200m in 21.68, breaking the collegiate record and moving to equal eighth on the world all-time list alongside Melissa Jefferson-Wooden.
Sanu Jallow-Lockhart competed at the Adidas Track Nationals as a high school athlete in 2022. She represented The Gambia at the Paris 2024 Olympics. This week she ran 1:56.85 in the 800m final, shattering Athing Mu's collegiate record of 1:57.73 by 0.88 seconds. Penn State's Hayley Kitching was second in 1:57.65, itself faster than the previous record.
Samuel Ogazi was discovered at a local school athletics championships in 2019 at age 14 by a coach who spotted his speed and put him on a track. He initially competed in the 200m, transitioned to the 400m in 2022, and by 2023 had won both events at the African U18 and U20 Championships and the Commonwealth Youth Games, earning him a scholarship to Alabama. At Paris 2024, at 18 years old, he was the youngest competitor in the men's 400m final - the first Nigerian man to reach that final in 36 years, finishing seventh in 44.41. His collegiate best coming into this week was 44.84, set when he won the 2025 NCAA title. On Friday at Hayward Field he ran 43.38 -- breaking Michael Norman's collegiate record of 43.61 from 2018, the fourth-fastest 400m in world history.