A few days ago, in the men's 60m hurdles event of the NCAA Indoor Athletics Championships in the United States, a student named Trey Kunningham from Florida State University successfully attracted everyone's attention, and the athletics hurdles prodigy won the championship with a time of 7.38 seconds. It is worth mentioning that this result even exceeded the Asian record of 7.41 seconds held by The Athens Olympic champion Liu Xiang in the men's 110m hurdles, ranking tied for 11th place in history. Since the athletics event entered the Olympic Games, the American team has become a well-deserved hegemon, and they have super strength in athletics, track and other sports, especially in short-distance events such as 100 meters, 200 meters, and 400 meters, which are in a monopoly position.
But in the men's 110m hurdles, they have never been able to achieve absolute domination. With the strong rise of Quinningham, the American team ushered in the dawn of this short board project. Some netizens said that without systematic training and participating in international competitions, they can surpass Liu Xiang's Asian record in the 60-meter hurdles, and the American track and field genius may be able to break Liu Xiang's record again in the men's 110-meter hurdles. According to the official results, with his performance in the 60m hurdles, Quinningham also became the second active athlete to run the 7.40 seconds mark after the runner-up of the 110m hurdles Olympic Games, Holloway.
Those familiar with athletics know that most athletes participating in the men's 110m hurdles will choose to concurrently compete in the 60m hurdles, the former requiring the runners to have super durability, stability and the speed of the connection between the hurdles, and the latter to test the starting reaction speed and explosiveness of the runners. Chinese athletics legend Liu Xiang soared to the top at the 2004 Athens Olympics and won the first Olympic gold medal of his career by an absolute advantage, which is also the first gold medal in the hurdles event of the Chinese athletics team so far.
Liu Xiang's contemporaries included Robles of the Cuban team and Trammell of the United States team, and these three people formed a three-legged competition situation at that time. Interestingly, both Liu Xiang and Robles eventually managed to reach the highest peak in the world, while Trammell bid farewell with regret. As he said in an interview, the main energy of the American athletics team is in the sprint event, and the hurdles and long distance events are simply vulnerable in terms of competition expenses and logistics. In recent Olympic Games, the U.S. team has not achieved the desired results in the men's 110-meter hurdles.
With Quinningham making it out in the 2022 season, the world's strongest team in athletics was finally able to raise its eyebrows in the international arena. Because Kunningham got a time of 7.38 seconds in the 60m hurdles, many netizens are optimistic that the talented teenager will dominate the men's 110m hurdles in the future, and even surpass the results achieved by the Chinese team Liu Xiang. Some people joked, "Liu Xiang has become a thing of the past, as the young players and newcomers around the world continue to grow, the Chinese flyer's performance ranking will be higher and lower until it completely disappears"! Will the American hurdles star be the second "Liu Xiang"?
(Luo Treasurer)