Erriyon Knighton: Younger than Usain Bolt, Faster than the Wind

Usain Bolt is the measure of the extraordinary in speed, the maximum to which the human being can aspire to approach.

And so great was the Jamaican sprinter, impossible world records in 100m (9.58s) and 200m (19.19s), three double gold medals in three Olympic Games, Beijing, London, Rio, that when he retired everyone cried and they thanked the Lord for having been able to enjoy in life a presence like Bolt's, a pleasure that future generations would not enjoy.

Only five years have passed, and an accelerated technological revolution, and the figure of Bolt already seems to be covered in dust, a symbol of the optimistic past.

The present, they say, is already flying.

We've got a new Usain Bolt on the tracks, yell everyone, talking about Erriyon Knighton like one should talk about the last prophet of speed, another rush, what a stride, what a clean style, he runs like an arrow, they say, so light (only 77 kilos), without scandalous muscles, without abruptness, pure flow, his movements so fluid, so natural, that it seems that he does not have to fight like the others the resistance of the air to his advance, but that he himself is the air, and he advances easily. like the air.

A new Bolt without edges and something else, they add, and put on the spreadsheet the 19.49s with which the

from Tampa (Florida) beat last Saturday on the LSU track (the University of Louisiana at Baton Rouge ) the 200m junior world record held by the Jamaican phenomenon with 19.93s since 2004, in April, and his heir, now full of life, was in the cradle, three months old.

And already the previous year, in the United States Trials that earned him to compete in the Tokyo Games at the age of 17 (and he was fourth in the final), Knighton had run the distance in 19.84s, depriving Bolt of his first record, the junior world.

“Knighton runs like angels with wings, and that ease is so reminiscent of the way Tommie Smith, the champion of Mexico 68, and rebel

advanced on the podium, black gloved fist held high, and he was also 1.91m tall” recalls Ramón Cid, the coach of María Vicente who for years was the technical director of the Spanish federation, recalling the great North American athlete who, in the Mexican final, with a fabulous straight line in which he overcame his teammate John Carlos, became the first

under 20s (19.83s) and established forever the most aesthetic typology of the 200m runner.

"And, looking at the race, you can see that he doesn't finish at the end, that he keeps running and brakes like nothing, everything so easy... These ways are what define a true talent."

And he is a boy who turned 18 in January and who since he was 16, at least, has been so aware of his great talent for athletics that he did not hesitate to answer yes when in August 2020, in his second year of high school, his coach football, after timing him 20.33s in a 200m, invited him to give up football, despite dozens of offers from the best universities, and dedicate himself only to athletics.

Shortly after he signed his first professional contract with Adidas.

Saturday's 19.49s is such a good mark for any age that only three men in history have run the distance faster.

The ranking is led by Bolt with his record of 19.19s (2009), ahead of fellow Jamaican Yohan Blake (19.26s) and Texan Michael Johnson (19.32s).

Then, only Knighton and a barrier, that of the 19s, which was said to be so impossible that it was only within the reach of a single athlete for ever and ever, Bolt himself who did not reach it.

Perhaps Knighton will be the man called to cross the new frontier of speed first?

The world of athletics is so impressed, the technicians who talk nonstop, they are so excited, that perhaps the question is not that, if he will succeed, they specify, but when Knighton will be able to beat Bolt's record, the 19.19s ("and he is less than three meters away from achieving it,” recalls Cid), and if he will even be able to do it this busy summer, with the Trials in June and the World Cup in July, at his home, at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon.

“His projection is already brutal this year”, says Pedro Jiménez Reyes, the coach of the Spanish record holder of 200m (20.04s), Bruno Hortelano, who underlines that in his first 200m of the year, and still in April, Knighton lowered 35 hundredths to his previous best mark.

“He still has a lot of room for improvement, especially at the start, which is not very fast, and in the corner, which he handles very calmly,

building speed that explodes down the straight, which is the key to his 200m.

In the 19.49s race, he was timed 9.20 in his second 100, launched…” And Reyes says that this is tremendous even discounting the tenth or two tenths that they say can be won with the new carbon plate shoes, which, however, do not favor all athletes equally, more so those with "less ankle", with less reactive tread.

Pierre Jean Vazel, French coach and encyclopedia of speed and athletics, prefers to draw a less fanciful and enthusiastic profile of the Florida sprinter.

“He doesn't remind me of either of them, or Bolt and Smith.

These had a longer stride,” explains sprinter Christine Arron's former coach and hammerer's current coach Quentin Bigot.

“I think yes, that he will be able to drop below 19s, but will he be the first to do it?

He is not the fastest in the corner, which is Bednarek, nor in the straight, which is Fahnbulleh, but he can improve in both sectors.

His running style is still perfectible, so I think if injuries don't stop him, he won't reach his peak until he's 24-25 years old."

It will already be, the summer of 2028, the Los Angeles Games, and perhaps by then Knighton will be just an athlete with a past and there will be others that everyone falls in love with and of whom it is said, there is the new Knighton.

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