20-Year-Old Ja’Kobe Tharp Stuns The World, Scripts New 110M Hurdles World Record At NCAA Championship Prelims

Ja’Kobe Tharp had a goal when he took to the track at the NCAA Championship preliminaries in Eugene: qualify for the finals. He took it a step further, creating history by rewriting a record set 14 years ago and becoming the first man to finish the line in sub 12.80s in 110m hurdles.

On the inaugural day of the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships, Tharp ran 12.75 seconds (+1.0 meter/second tailwind) to finish ahead of Demario Prince (13.02; Baylor) and Matthew Sophia (13.30; LSU). The 20-year-old from Auburn also rewrote the meet and collegiate record held by Grant Holloway of Florida, a 12.98 finish in 2019.

Tharp, stunned and speechless, previously sat 32nd in the fastest times set in 110m hurdles with a personal best of 13.01. He confessed that while he envisioned a breakthrough performance, a world record was something that he didn’t anticipate. He knew he “had that in my legs,” just that “it wasn’t on my bingo card before this meet, not at all.”

Tharp knew he was going faster and expected a sub-13 finish. The 20-year-old Auburn athlete told the reporters in the aftermath of the race:

I was going pretty fast. The last three hurdles were kind of iffy. I was like, ‘Whoa, I’m coming up kind of fast.’ I thought maybe 12.97 or 12.98, and match the speed record. But to see that, it was like, ‘Ahhhh.’ I’m speechless, seriously.

WORLD RECORD IN NCAA CHAMPIONSHIP PRELIMS 🤯

Ja'Kobe Tharp ran a 12.75 in the 110M hurdles to set a new world record! pic.twitter.com/KHD1PleVDb

— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) June 11, 2026

He has made his statement, but his goal in Oregon is far from finished. He will return on June 12 to try and become the first man since Holloway to win back-to-back 110m hurdles in the NCAA Championships. Holloway won three titles in a row from 2017 to 2019. Tharp had also featured in the World Athletics Championships last year, where he finished sixth.

It has been a pretty great month for the USA in men’s hurdles. A week before, former NCAA 110m hurdles champion, Trey Cunningham, won the Rome Diamond League, breaking the sub-13 barrier for the first time in his career.

Nebraska Cornhuskers lead after Day One of the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Champs

After an excruciating day one in Eugene, Oregon, the University of Nebraska leads the points table with 28 points, followed by Oregon with 18 and Kansas State with 16 points. Sophomore Dyson Wicker won the men’s pole vault with a 5.85m jump to earn the Cornhuskers first individual win of the tournament.

Wicker, hailing from Heath, Texas, jumped the highest distance to win the event since Chris Nilsen set the meet record with a 5.95m in 2019. The Texans’ win also meant that the pole vault collegiate crown returns to an American. In the last five years, a non-American has won the event thrice. For Oregon, the ten-point event was the men’s shot put. Ben Smith finished first, while the Cornhuskers also managed to grab 12 points.

Chinecherem Prosper Nnamdi won the men’s javelin for Texas A&M, their first win in the discipline since Greek Ioannis Kyriazis won in 2017. The Minnesota Golden Gophers scooped up the men’s hammer throw event for the second year in a row, as Angelos Mantzouranis threw 75.78m in the finals. Konstantinos Zaltos won it for the Gophers last year. Mantzouranis’ win also meant that it was the fourth year in a row a foreign student has won this discipline.

Kansas State’s Tafadzwa Chikomba jumped 8.37 for the gold in men’s long jump. His college mate Uroy Ryan finished third in the event. The men’s 10,000m was the only running medal event on Wednesday. Habtom Samuel placed first, clocking a time of 27:51.31. New Mexico has now won the discipline for the past three years.

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