Twin sisters. Same coach. Same club. Same start line, meet after meet, year after year. By August 2026, both were standing on a podium at the World U20 Championships in Eugene - Mia with 100m and 200m gold, Mariah with 200m bronze.

Here is how they got there.

Where They Started

Humble, Texas. Their father played running back in high school. Their mother did cheerleading and gymnastics. Their younger sister Madison is coming up behind them.

Their high school is Atascocita. Their club is APXP in Katy. Coach Danny McCray runs the group.

They do not run identical lives. Mia plays viola in the Atascocita orchestra and volunteers with Humble ISD's Fill the Bus project. Her idol in the jumps is Jasmine Moore - the Paris 2024 Olympic triple jump bronze medalist whose Texas all-time record of 44-10 Mia came within four inches of this winter. Mariah's focus has stayed on the sprints. Both plan to major at the University of Texas and both will train under the Longhorns' sprint program in Austin this fall.

2023 VICTOR LOPEZ CLASSIC

Two sisters. One household. One coach. One school. The same clock counting down to the same weekend in Eugene.

Now, let's run it back a few years.

Spring 2023. Freshman year at Atascocita.

Mia stepped to the line for her first outdoor 100m and ran 12.49. Her first 200m clocked 26.52. Mariah ran her first 100m in 12.84 and her first 200m in 28.56 - before dropping that time to 26.60 just days later.

Neither mark had a national ring to it. They were the marks of two teenagers finding out what they had.

The Progression, Year by Year

Sophomore year (2024). Both cracked into mid-11 territory in the 100m. Mia opened her season at 12.11, but got that down to 11.56 at a district area meet. Mariah opened in 12.25 and then ran 11.53 and won the 200m title at the USATF National Junior Olympic Championships in 23.82. Both were improving on the same schedule.

MIA AND MARIAH SWEEP 2025 USATF U20 CHAMPIONSHIPS

Junior year (2025). The volume turned up. Mia ran 11.04 at the UIL Class 6A state meet and matched it at the Brooks PR Invitational. Both marks tied the Texas state record. That year she also won the USATF U20 Championships over 200m in 23.10 seconds, and collected a number of first place finishes in the triple jump, with her best of the season measuring 42-6.5. Mariah won the UIL state 200m title in a meet-record 22.93 and also ran a wind-aided 22.77 a few months before.

Senior Year: The Numbers Left High School

January - Texas High School Indoor Championships. Mia ran 22.89 in the 200m. Mariah ran 22.97. The two fastest 200m performances by a Texas girl in state history. Mariah then won the 60m in a meet-and-facility-record 7.27. A week later at the VA Showcase. Mariah ran the 300m for the first time in her life. She clocked 36.24 and broke the national indoor record. Mia won the 55m in 6.69.

March - USATF Indoor Championships, New York. Mia tied the U.S. high school 60m national record at 7.13. Mariah ran 7.14. They finished second and third behind professional Jacious Sears (7.04). At the Nike Indoor Nationals. Mariah won the 200m in 22.84 - the fourth-fastest by a US high schooler in history. Mia was second in 23.04 and won the triple jump with 13.11m. 

Outdoors, building toward Eugene. Mia dropped 11.17 at the Clyde Hart Classic in late March, 11.10 at the LSU Invitational in May, 11.01w at the Lone Star Grand Prix in June. Mariah ran a wind-aided 22.25 at the Texas Relays and 22.44 at the Tom Jones Memorial -  into a 2.2 headwind. Both skipped the UIL state season entirely. They were racing open, against pros, all pointing at one thing.

June - USATF U20 Championships. Both made the World U20 team by going 1-2 in the 100m and the 200m. Mia won the 100m in 11.08, Mariah second in 11.33. Mia won the 200m in 22.49, Mariah second in 22.86. 

August - World U20 Championships, Hayward Field. The twins ran through three rounds of the 100m. Mia's series: 11.37 in prelims, 11.13 in semis, 11.14 in the final - winning by three hundredths over Jamaica's Shanoya Douglas. It was the first American women's 100m gold at a World U20 Championships since Candace Hill in 2016. Mariah was fifth in the same final in 11.35. Two days later, in the 200m, Mia edged out Douglas down the homestretch, closing to win in a personal best 22.37. Mariah took bronze in 22.77. The medal stand was a family affair.

What Comes Next

Austin, this fall.

Both Maxwells are enrolled at the University of Texas and will join the Longhorns' sprint program. It is the same program that has produced Julien Alfred, the reigning Olympic 100m champion. The natural next step is bigger. The Longhorns' history at NCAA Championships, a build up that lands them in a SEC conference title race, into a USATF outdoor finals and beyond that, the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics arrives with them still in their college years.

They walk into Austin with World U20 medals, with national high school records, with times that would win most college conference meets and of course with each other. That has always been the point.