Team USA’s Grant Holloway has topped off his perfect season with a long-awaited Olympic gold medal. The 26-year-old sprinter established unquestionable dominance over the sprint event with a sub-13 second performance on Thursday, clocking 12.99 to win by one tenth of a second.
His teammate, Daniel Roberts, joined him on the podium in second place, beating out the bronze medal finisher, Jamaica’s Rasheed Broadbell, by just three thousandths of a second.
Holloway had been the clear favourite heading into the Olympic final in Tokyo in 2021, but was upset by Jamaica’s Hansle Parchment. The race devastated Holloway, whose personal best stood at 12.81, over three tenths of a second faster than Parchment’s (at the time). With the American hungrier than ever for redemption in Paris, the reigning Olympic champion settled for eighth, while Holloway upgraded his silver medal to gold.
Holloway is just one hundredth of a second off the world record held by fellow American Aries Merritt since 2012; with three world championship titles and a fresh Olympic title to his name, breaking the world record is all that’s left on Holloway’s to-do list.
