Florida men’s track & field breaks records, finishes second at NCAA Outdoor Championships

By Adam Silverstein
June 9, 2019
Florida men’s track & field breaks records, finishes second at NCAA Outdoor Championships
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Image Credit: UAA Communications

It was quite a week for Florida Gators men’s track & field at the 2019 NCAA Outdoor Championships on Saturday, though it did not end with a sweep of the season’s national titles for the program. What the Gators did achieve, however, was some record-breaking marks that may stand for quite some time.

The Florida men’s 4×100 relay team obliterated the NCAA record in the event, running the race in 37.97 seconds. In doing so, they became the first team to break 38 seconds in the event and beat Houston’s 2018 record of 38.17 seconds by a full two-tenths of a second.

Junior Grant Holloway, a member of that title-winning 4×100 relay team, was not done there. Less than an hour after his first race, he three-peated as champion in the 110-meter hurdles, running this year’s race faster than any collegian has in 40 years. Holloway won an individual national title in the 110-meter hurdles in 12.98 seconds, breaking a record previously set in May 5, 1979 by Renaldo Nehemiah (13.00).

If that name sounds familiar, Nehemiah was ranked No. 1 in the world in the 110-meter hurdles for four straight years, with his 13.00 time being a prior world record, which he achieved as a Maryland student-athlete. He even played for the San Francisco 49ers for a couple of years before returning to the track.

According to UF, Holloway is the first athlete in NCAA history to sweep the 60-meter hurdles (indoors) and 110-meter hurdles (outdoors) in three straight years. Should he return to the Gators — though that is unlikely with the 2020 Tokyo Olympics ahead next summer — he would have an opportunity to win the events a combined eight times in four years.

Holloway already has eight individual national championships in his Florida career, a program record.

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