Teenage Sprint Sensation Erriyon Knighton is Quietly Making History — On His Own Terms

In track and field, sprinters are often known for their bravado, making bold predictions, hyping up crowds before races and putting on joyful displays of celebration afterwards. But Erriyon Knighton prefers to let his running do the talking.

So far, people are listening. Still just 19 years old, Knighton has established himself as one of the top 200-meter runners in the world and will contend for the gold medal at the upcoming World Athletics Championships in Budapest (Aug. 19-27).

This will be Knighton’s third straight season representing Team USA. He made the 2020 U.S. Olympic Team after his junior year in high school, placing fourth at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020. Then last year, he moved up a spot to take bronze at the World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon. 

In between, he set a world U-20 record in the 200, clocking 19.49 seconds at a meet in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in April 2022. That was actually Knighton’s third time lowering the Under-20 standard. The previous record holder was none other than Olympic legend Usain Bolt of Jamaica, who had held the standard (19.93) for 17 years before Knighton came onto the scene. (Knighton was less than three months old when Bolt set his mark.)

Naturally, the track and field community has been buzzing about Knighton’s potential. The expectations and chatter are hard to avoid, but the soft-spoken Tampa, Florida, native refuses to get caught up in — or perpetuate — the hype.

“Sometimes it motivates, but I tend not to pay attention to it, because I’m just trying to see what I do first, my progression,” Knighton says. “I’m not really one of those types of people who says what I’m going to do, and how I’m going to do it. I just train very hard and when I get on the track my work will show for itself.”

Knighton’s meteoric rise began in 2020, when he won AAU Junior Olympic titles in the 100 (10.29) and 200 (20.33) in the 15-16 age group. Not only were his times faster than those of the 17-18 age-group winners, they were among the best that year by an American of any age.

As 2021 began, Knighton — then a junior at Hillsborough High School in Tampa — made the decision to turn professional. He signed a contract with adidas and soon began training in Gainesville with University of Florida coach Mike Holloway. 

Transitioning to the life of a professional athlete was effortless for Knighton, who continued to attend high school while training and competing. At the 2020 U.S. Olympic Team Trials in Eugene — delayed a year due to the pandemic – he finished third in the 200, behind world champion Noah Lyles and Kenny Bednarek. Knighton became the youngest member of Team USA’s Olympic track and field squad Jim Ryun qualified for the 1500 in 1964 at age 17.

At the Tokyo Games, held in a mostly empty stadium, the 17-year-old Knighton then became the youngest men’s track finalist in the modern Olympic Games, placing fourth.

“He got fourth today, but that doesn’t mean he’ll get fourth tomorrow or the next year after that,” said Lyles, who took the bronze. “If he keeps pushing, I think he’s right now on the road to do even more amazing things.”

Fast forward a year and Lyles’ prediction was right on target. Knighton became the fourth fastest 200 runner in history (at the time) with his 19.49 world U-20 record. (Bolt set the current world record of 19.19 in 2009.)

Then in June, a month after graduating high school, he finished second behind Lyles at the USATF Outdoor Championships, and a month after that he took the bronze at the World Athletics Championships, becoming the youngest 200 medalist in meet history and completing a U.S. sweep behind Lyles and Bednarek.

“It was obviously something new, something I’d never done before,” Knighton said of his step onto the podium. “It was a great feeling and I will want to do it again. Just having everybody see that you’ve won something very important.”

While Lyles thrives on playing to the crowd before and after his races, Knighton takes a more restrained approach.

“I’m aware of everything that goes on,” he says. “I’m not really a crowd hyper but I stay to myself and handle business. After that then you’ll see me get hyped.” Indeed, his beaming post-race smile at worlds was a sign that he was pleased with the outcome.

Among those impressed by Knighton’s poise is four-time Olympic gold medalist Michael Johnson, who paid tribute to the youngster for Time magazine’s Time100 Next list last year.

Johnson noted that “what’s more unprecedented than his times is that he’s consistently been there at the very top. Making the U.S. team as a teenager is just very, very impressive. What’s unique about athletes like Usain Bolt and Serena Williams is not just that they, at a very young age, had incredible talent and focus and attention. It’s that they were able to handle that pressure, and perform consistently despite it.”

With another world championship on tap in Budapest, Knighton is back to his all-business approach. He won a pair of Diamond League races in June, then in July he captured his first U.S. title, taking the 200 in 19.72 seconds over the deepest field in history, with six men breaking 20.00 seconds for the first time. He’ll be joined in Budapest by Bednarek and Courtney Lindsey, this year’s NCAA champion in the 100 for Texas Tech, as well as defending champion Lyles (who finished third in the 100 at the U.S. championships; he has a wild card invitation in the 200 for Budapest as defending champion).

Knighton’s objectives are both ambitious and straightforward.

“My goal this year is probably just to get gold, get on the podium and just be better than last year,” Knighton says. “That’s the goal for me, just to be better than last year.” 

That’s no small task when you’re already the fifth fastest man in history (Lyles’s winning time at the 2022 world championships, an American record 19.31, pushed Knighton down a spot on the all-time list.) Knighton doesn’t have a specific time in mind, and knows that it will now take small adjustments to get even faster. “I don’t think that I’m running the race wrong, but I also don’t think that I’m running it too right, either yet,” he says. “There are some things that I can do better.”

If he takes the gold in Budapest, he would be the youngest-ever world champion in the 200. His toughest competition will likely come from his own teammates. “We’ve got a good chance to do some great things over there,” he said after winning the U.S. title, noting that an American sweep of the top four places is possible. “Man, we got a squad, if anyone wants to break it up they’re gonna have to do something special.”