Grant Holloway Runs 12.81 In 110m Hurdles Semis; Rai Benjamin Posts 46.84 In 400m Hurdles; Gabby Thomas Stuns With 21.61 In 200m Finals

By Doug Binder, DyeStat Editor/ Photos by Adam Eberhardt for TrackTown USA

A young group of American athletes strung together one astounding performance after another on the track Saturday as temperatures soared into triple digits at Hayward Field. 

Grant Holloway flirted with a world record in the 110-meter hurdles in the semifinals with 12.81 seconds, before winning the final less than two hours later to make his first Olympic team. 

Like Holloway, Rai Benjamin and Gabby Thomas ripped through finals and moved to No. 2 all-time in their events. 

Benjamin ran 46.84 in the 400-meter hurdles, faster than anyone but 1992 Olympic champion Kevin Young, who has owned the world record 46.78 for 29 years. 

Thomas, who has overcome a cancer scare this spring and raised her game in the 200 meters over the past three days, blasted 21.61 to become the fastest woman of all-time besides world-record holder Florence Griffith-Joyner, who ran 21.34 and 21.56 at the 1988 Seoul Olympics. 

"Hayward Magic is real," Thomas said. "Everyone's been saying it, but once you step into the stadium it's like nothing you ever feel. There's so much adrenaline. There's so much energy. It is the most beautiful thing.

"Seeing what Rai did, and these other athletes before me, really, really inspired me. It motivated me."

After the race, Thomas revealed that near the start of May doctors found a tumor in her liver. The possibility of cancer was sobering thought. 

"Trials were a couple weeks away and I was worried that I wouldn't be in a good head space here, to perform, knowing that I could possibly have cancer," Thomas said. "Fortunately they found out that it was benign just a couple of days before I left, so I came in with a clear mind.

"I remember telling God, if I am healthy I am going to go out and win Trials. If this is not cancer, I will go and make this team, and that's exactly what I did, so I'm really grateful."

Holloway, Benjamin and Thomas were part of a sensational day that saw five all-time Hayward Field records, including DeAnna Price's American record in the hammer and Katie Nageotte's win in the pole vault. 

Sydney McLaughlin coasted into the finish line of her semifinal race and showed that she could put pressure on the world record in the women's 400-meter hurdles race Sunday, which is forecast to be a scorcher. McLaughlin eased in to a 53.03, less than a second off Dalilah Muhammad's 2019 record of 52.16.

McLaughlin and Muhammad will go head to head for the first time since their historic 2019 World Athletics Championships final

And Erriyon Knighton, just 17, became the fastest 200-meter runner ever under 18 years old and showed that he might make the U.S. team on Sunday. The adidas pro from Florida's Hillsborough High ran 19.88 to break Usain Bolt's World U-20 record (19.93 from 2004). 

"I got out well, executed well and did what I had to do, and shut it down the last 20 meters," Knighton said. "The plan is making the team so that's what I'm going to try to do."

Earlier, after adjusting to a 10 a.m. start, the women's 10,000 meters went off with temperatures already at 86 degrees. Forty-one women went to the starting line in an event where so many achieved the Trials standard.

Emily Sisson forged ahead and ran her final 1,000 meters in 2:55.98 on the way to a meet record time of 31:03.82. She beat runner-up Karissa Schweizer of the Bowerman Track Club, who earned her second spot on the team, by 13 seconds (31:16.52). Alicia Monson kept the breakthrough momentum going for the Dathan Ritzenhein-led On Athletic Club, securing the group's second Olympic berth, in 31:18.55. 

At 7 a.m. in Springfield, the temperature was 66 degrees for the start of the 20-kilometer race walk. The kilometer loop that consisted of both full sun and shade and over two hours the temperature rose to near 80. 

Robyn Stevens went out hard and maintained a pace aimed at earning the Olympic standard (1:31:00), but fell a bit off on the way to 1:35:13. She won the women's race by four minutes, ahead of veteran performers Maria Michta Coffey (1:39:25) and Miranda Melville (1:40:39). Taylor Ewert, a freshman at the University of Arkansas, boldly went out at Stevens' pace for nearly 4 kilometers before falling a bit behind. 

Ewert got through the first 10K in 48:26 and the second half in 55:15 on the way to sixth. 

Nick Christie, who trains and lives with Stevens in the Mojave Desert, was the class of the men's field and won the Trials title in 1:30:48. Daniel Nehnevaj fell back by 72 seconds by 7K and then was mostly even with Christie after that, taking second in 1:31:59. Third-place finisher Emmanuel Corvera overcame a 2-minute penalty late in the race but still got third, in 1:34.38.