This is the feat of the start of the Olympic year. Saturday in Clermont, Florida, young Christian Miller (17) achieved the best performance of the season in the 100m, setting a record time of 9.93. This impressive time makes him the youngest runner to go under ten seconds in the premier discipline of sprinting.
“Chronometrically, it’s huge. 9″93, that’s awesome! Even for a senior, it’s already very tough,” says Renaud Longuèvre, former manager of the French athletics teams. His mark is, for example, only seven hundredths away from the French record (9″86), established by Jimmy Vicaut in 2015.
9.93 by Christian Miller in the 100m!!
He’s 17 years old!! ????????
Miller ran 10.08 last year to break the world youth record but this season he’s back for more!
He ran in Clermont, Florida at the Pure Athletics Invitational! pic.twitter.com/rw9iMjekK8
— RoriDunk (@FitzDunk) April 20, 2024
“We can’t do it any faster for a high school student,” someone told me last year. Well, I’m proving them wrong! », enthused the person after his feat. Almost 18 years old (he will be on May 16), Miller is in fact still a high school student and will attend the University of Georgia next school year. He had already achieved some performances in the past, over 100m or 200m at the American junior championships in 2023, until his feat of arms.
Several favorable circumstances
This was carried out on Saturday in Clermont, in his native Florida and in very specific circumstances. “I know this place,” continues Longuèvre. It’s a basin, the weather conditions are perfect. Several times have been recorded there in the past. » Miller indeed benefited from a favorable but regulatory wind (+1.6 m/s) to establish his extraordinary mark, which even Usain Bolt did not reach at his age. But that was 20 years ago and, in the meantime, several technical innovations have made things considerably easier for athletes.
Among them, new shoes with spikes and carbon plates. “They bring about 15 hundredths of a gain,” estimates trainer Renaud Longuèvre. Without these spikes, it could be a time around 10″10, it’s already less monstrous. » The latter is generally rather cautious. “What he does is exceptional, but be careful of small phenomena with early maturity,” he warns. I want to see what it can do against the best in the world, with a headwind or rain for example. »
The Olympic minimums reached, but…
Likewise, and while his performance allows him to achieve the minimums (established at 10 seconds) to dream of the Olympic Games, the road is still long. The United States will only be able to send a maximum of three sprinters over 100m. And the competition is very fierce, as the selections will take place in June.
The last two world champions, Noah Lyles (2023) and Fred Kerley (2022), or the indoor 60m record holder Christian Coleman, to name a few, are among the applicants. “And there are also seven or eight other athletes who have already done 9″90 or better…, adds Longuèvre. I don’t believe it for a single second. »
