San Antonio\u2019s Tate Taylor flourished in his final meet as a junior as he became the first American male to win sprint\u2019s \u201ctriple crown\u201d \u2014 the 100-meter dash, the 200 dash and the 4×100 relay \u2014 at the World Under 20 Track and Field Championships held in Eugene, Ore.<\/p>\n
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Taylor, 2026 Harlan graduate, set two records before he is expected to enroll at Texas Tech this fall.<\/p>\n
Selected as a captain for Team USA, the 18-year-old Taylor dominated all three of his races. He set a meet record in the 200 dash with a time of 19.83 seconds on Saturday at Hayward Field, known as \u201cTrackTown,\u201d at the University of Oregon.<\/p>\n
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On Sunday, Taylor teamed with Blake Hamilton, Dillon Mitchell and Kyler Brown for a victory in the 4×100 with an Under 20 world record time of 38.16. Taylor anchored the relay with a split of 8.75 seconds.<\/p>\n
Taylor opened the meet on Thursday with a victory in the 100 with a time of 9.94 seconds. That was just off the national high school record 9.92 he clocked when he won the\u00a0UIL Class 6A state championship in 2025 as a junior at Harlan.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I saw the USA uniform, I\u2019ve been wanting to wear this for a long time,\u201d Taylor told reporters Thursday. \u201cTo finally get a chance to do it and put that out for my country to represent and to put God on my chest and put USA on my chest, it means the world to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gary Card of Jamaica, who entered the competition with the fastest 100 time this season, was second in 10.05. Taylor and Card had the top two qualifying times following Wednesday\u2019s semifinals, which led to a big build up. Following a slow start, Taylor quickly took control and won going away.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe nerves were up, but I got them back down,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cThe adrenaline was up, and I got that back down. After that, I was just calm and focused on my race.\u201d<\/p>\n
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EUGENE, OREGON – AUGUST 06: (L-R) Marko Ferreira of Team South Africa, Tate Taylor of Team United States and Gary Card of Team Jamaica compete in a heat of the Men’s 100m final during day two of the 2026 World Athletics U20 Championships at Hayward Field on August 06, 2026 in Eugene, Oregon. (Photo by Steph Chambers\/WA\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Steph Chambers\/WA\/Getty Images for World Athletics<\/p>\n
EUGENE, OREGON – AUGUST 08: Tate Taylor of Team United States celebrates winning the Men\u2019s 200m Finals during day four of the 2026 World Athletics U20 Championships at Hayward Field on August 08, 2026 in Eugene, Oregon. (Photo by Emilee Chinn\/WA\/Getty Images for World Athletics)<\/p>\n
Emilee Chinn\/WA\/Getty Images for World Athletics<\/p>\n
EUGENE, OREGON – AUGUST 09: Men\u2019s 200m and 100m gold medalist Tate Taylor of Team United States celebrates on the podium at the medals ceremony during day five of the 2026 World Athletics U20 Championships at Hayward Field on August 09, 2026 in Eugene, Oregon. (Photo by Steph Chambers\/WA\/Getty Images for World Athletics)<\/p>\n
Steph Chambers\/WA\/Getty Images for World Athletics<\/p>\n
EUGENE, OREGON – AUGUST 08: Tate Taylor of Team United States celebrates winning the Men\u2019s 200m Finals during day four of the 2026 World Athletics U20 Championships at Hayward Field on August 08, 2026 in Eugene, Oregon. (Photo by Steph Chambers\/WA\/Getty Images for World Athletics)<\/p>\n
Steph Chambers\/WA\/Getty Images for World Athletics<\/p>\n
EUGENE, OREGON – AUGUST 09: Men\u2019s 4x100m Relay gold medalists Tate Taylor and Blake Hamilton celebrate during day five of the 2026 World Athletics U20 Championships at Hayward Field on August 09, 2026 in Eugene, Oregon. (Photo by Emilee Chinn\/WA\/Getty Images for World Athletics)<\/p>\n
Emilee Chinn\/WA\/Getty Images for World Athletics<\/p>\n
EUGENE, OREGON – AUGUST 08: Tate Taylor of Team United States celebrates winning the Men\u2019s 200m Finals during day four of the 2026 World Athletics U20 Championships at Hayward Field on August 08, 2026 in Eugene, Oregon. (Photo by Steph Chambers\/WA\/Getty Images for World Athletics)<\/p>\n
Steph Chambers\/WA\/Getty Images for World Athletics<\/p>\n
EUGENE, OREGON – AUGUST 09: Tate Taylor of Team United States wins the Men\u2019s 4x100m Relay Finals during day five of the 2026 World Athletics U20 Championships at Hayward Field on August 09, 2026 in Eugene, Oregon. (Photo by Emilee Chinn\/WA\/Getty Images for World Athletics)<\/p>\n
Emilee Chinn\/WA\/Getty Images for World Athletics<\/p>\n
EUGENE, OREGON – AUGUST 08: (L-R) Men\u2019s 200m bronze medalist Jayden Green of Team Barbados, gold medalist Tate Taylor of Team United States and silver medalist Blake Hamilton of Team United States celebrate during day four of the 2026 World Athletics U20 Championships at Hayward Field on August 08, 2026 in Eugene, Oregon. (Photo by Steph Chambers\/WA\/Getty Images for World Athletics)<\/p>\n
Steph Chambers\/WA\/Getty Images for World Athletics<\/p>\n
EUGENE, OREGON – AUGUST 09: Tate Taylor of Team United States celebrates winning the Men\u2019s 4x100m Relay Finals during day five of the 2026 World Athletics U20 Championships at Hayward Field on August 09, 2026 in Eugene, Oregon. (Photo by Emilee Chinn\/WA\/Getty Images for World Athletics)<\/p>\n
Emilee Chinn\/WA\/Getty Images for World Athletics<\/p>\n
In the 200, Taylor finished ahead of Hamilton (20.31) for a 1-2 American finish. Taylor told Hamilton before the race, they were going 1-2.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey don\u2019t know what\u2019s about happen,\u201d Taylor said Saturday. \u201cThey don\u2019t know we are about to come out here and double up in this 200 and put the world on notice that the U.S. is going to be around for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Hamilton, a 2026 Katy Tompkins graduate who won the UIL Class 6A 200 in May with a wind-aided 19.86, trains with Taylor with the Texas Titans club team. He is signed to play football at UTEP.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to say I was expecting to go 19 (seconds), but I was hoping for a 19,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cA 19.8, probably not. But, I\u2019m glad I got it done because I wanted to go sub-10 (100) and sub-20 (200) in the same meet, so I\u2019m glad the Lord allowed me to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The world championships caps a remarkable summer for Taylor, who opted not to compete for Harlan his senior season in order to race on a national circuit.<\/p>\n
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In July, Taylor set a national high school record in the 200 dash with at time of 19.75 to win the Prefontaine Classic at Hayward Field. He took down a professional field that included the event\u2019s 2024 Olympic gold medalist, Letsile Tobogo of Botswana, who was second in 19.93.<\/p>\n
The only teenagers who have run faster are American Erriyon Knighton (19.49 in 2022) and Australian Gout Gout (19.67 in April 2026). Gout did not compete in Under 20 Worlds because of a hamstring injury.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Antonio\u2019s Tate Taylor flourished in his final meet as a junior as he became the first American…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":402808,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[82,84,83],"class_list":["post-402807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402807\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/402808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}