Teen Track Phenom Matthew Boling Leads U.S. Relay Team to U20 World Record – Runner’s World

• Teen sprint star Matthew Boling anchored the U.S. 4×100-meter relay team to a U20 word record of 38.62 seconds (pending ratification) at the Pan American U20 Championships on Saturday night.
• Boling achieved the sprint triple crown at the meet, earning gold in the 100 meters and the 200 meters before the relay.
• He is just one of four men in meet history to to secure gold medals in the 100 meters, 200 meters, and 4×100 meters in the same year, according to DyeStat.

High school sprint star Matthew Boling put another record in the books as his senior season closes out. On Saturday night, the University of Georgia signee anchored the U.S. 4×100-meter relay team to a U20 word record of 38.62 seconds (pending ratification).

It was just one of three gold medals Boling earned at the Pan American U20 Championships in San José, Costa Rica.

“It’s a really elite meet so everyone behind me is running 10.3, 10.4 too so I just gotta get the baton and bring us home,” Boling told MileSplit when describing his thought-process as the anchor leg. “Our other three legs gave me a good enough lead where I just knew I could relax and run the straight-away and we’d be good.”

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The team of Arian Smith, Justin Ofotan, Marcellus Moore, and Boling flew past the Jamaican team to secure gold in the relay for Team USA, breaking the previous world record of 38.66 set by the U.S. team of Trell Kimmons, Demi Omole, Ivory Williams, and LaShawn Merritt at the 2004 IAAF World Junior Championships in Grosseto, Italy. Just a teenager at the time, Merritt went on to win three Olympic gold medals and eight world championship titles during the course of his career.

The U.S. women’s 4×100 relay team—comprised of Thelma Davies, Semira Killebrew, Caisja Chandler, and Brandee Presley also won gold in the meet, finishing in a time of 43.51, to edge past Jamaica.

For Boling, the performance in the relay secured an impressive triple crown at the championship, which began with a wind-legal personal best in the 100 meters on Friday. The sprinter from Strake Jesuit College Preparatory in Houston, Texas, won gold in the 100 meters with a time of 10.11 (+0.5) on Friday night.

“I wasn’t in the final last year so that was a big motivation,” Boling told MileSplit after the 100 meter final. “I really didn’t get nervous before the race. I just told myself ‘You wanted this opportunity so bad last year and now you have it so make the best you can of it.”

On Saturday, he continued his winning streak by finishing first in the 200 meters final. His winning time of 20.31, which was run into a headwind, led a 1-2 sweep by the Americans as Kennedy Lightner earned a silver medal in 20.56. The victory was just shy of Boling’s lifetime best of 20.30, which was set at the USATF U20 Outdoor Championships in June.

Just hours later, Boling anchored the 4x100m relay in a record-breaking performance, his third gold medal of the championship.

With all three sprint titles, Boling becomes just the fourth male athlete in meet history to secure gold medals in the 100 meters, 200 meters, and 4×100 meters in the same year, according to DyeStat. Only fellow Americans Carl Lewis (1980), Joe DeLoach (1984), and Bryan Bridgewater (1989) have accomplished the feat.

The Pan American Championships closes out an impressive end to Boling’s high school career. The 19-year-old turned heads at the Texas State Championships in May, when he ran the 100 meters in a wind-aided 9.98 seconds, which is the fastest 100 meters ever recorded by an American high school athlete. In June, he was named Gatorade National Track and Field Player of the Year for his accomplishments this season.

Taylor Dutch is a freelance writer living in Austin, Texas.