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| Erriyon Knighton | |
| Birth Date: | 29 January 2004 |
| Birth Place: | Jesup, Georgia, U.S. |
| Height: | 6 ft 3 in[1] |
| Weight: | 170 lb |
| Sport: | Track and field |
| Event: | 100 meters, 200 meters |
| Club: | My Brother's Keeper Track Club |
| Coach: | Jonathan Terry and Mike Holloway |
Erriyon Knighton (born January 29, 2004)[2] is an American sprinter specializing in the 100 meters and 200 meters. At the age of 18, he won the bronze medal in the 200 m at the 2022 World Athletics Championships, becoming the youngest ever individual sprint medalist in Championships history. He is the 2023 U.S. Champion in the 200 meters and the 2023 World Championships silver medalist.
Knighton holds the world under-18 best in the 200 m of 19.84 seconds, set on June 27, 2021, and world U20 record with a time of 19.69 seconds, set on June 26, 2022. His best mark of 19.49 s (not ratified[3]) makes him the sixth-fastest athlete in history over the distance, only surpassed by Usain Bolt, Yohan Blake, Noah Lyles, Michael Johnson and Letsile Tebogo.[4] It was also the fastest season opener ever.
In 2022, Knighton became the first athlete in history to win a second World Athletics Male Rising Star of the Year award.[5]
Erriyon Knighton started participating in track and field in 2019 as a freshman at Hillsborough High School in Tampa, Florida. During his time there, he ran the second fastest time over 200 meters for an under-18 athlete in world history, clocking 20.33 seconds in the final at the 2020 USA Track & Field Junior Olympics in Satellite Beach, Florida.[6] He also played for Hillsborough's football team as a wide receiver; rated a four-star recruit by 247Sports.com, he received scholarship offers from schools including Alabama, Auburn, Florida State, and Florida.[7] [8]
At age 16 in January, Knighton signed a sponsorship deal with Adidas in his junior year of high school, forgoing his remaining two years of amateur competition at Hillsborough High.[6] On May 2, he broke the 10-second barrier over 100 meters at the PURE Athletics Sprint Elite Meet in Clermont, Florida, with a time of 9.99 seconds, but the wind was over the +2.0 meters per second velocity limit (+2.7) for record consideration.[9]
On May 31, the 17-year-old set the world under-18 best in the boys' 200 meters in a time of 20.11 seconds, breaking Usain Bolt's best by two hundredths of a second.[10] [11] At the US Olympic Trials he would improve that time to 20.04 s in the first round on June 25, and then again to 19.88 s in the semi-finals the following day, breaking Bolt's world U20 record by five hundredths of a second. He then improved his own record to 19.84 seconds in the final on June 27, qualifying for the postponed 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics.
At the Tokyo Games, Knighton became the youngest male to represent the United States in track and field since Jim Ryun in 1964.[12] On August 3, he finished first in his 200-meter Olympic semi-final heat and qualified for an automatic spot in the final to be run the next day.[13] In the final he finished in fourth with a time of 19.93 seconds.[12]
On April 30, Knighton set an unratified world junior record in the 200 m at the LSU Invitational in Baton Rouge running a time of 19.49 seconds.[14] He achieved 19.69 s at the USA Outdoor T&F Championships in June. Knighton later on went on to place third in the event at the 2022 World Athletics Championships, in Eugene, USA, becoming the youngest ever individual sprint medalist in Championship history.[15] [16] He also became the youngest winner of a Diamond League race with his 200 m victory on September 2 in Brussels.[17]
On July 9, 2023, in Eugene during the USA Outdoor T&F Championships, he won his first senior national title by triumphing in the 200 meters with a time of 19.72 seconds.[18]
At the 2023 World Athletics Championships in Budapest in August, Erriyon Knighton once again stood on a world podium by finishing second in the 200 m final with a time of 19.75 seconds. He was once again beaten by Noah Lyles, who won comfortably with a time of 19.52 seconds.[19]
At the end of the season in September, he finished third in the 200 m final of the Diamond League in Eugene with a time of 19.97 seconds.[20]
Erriyon closed his last season as a junior with 18 times under 20 seconds in the 200 meters, with his top 10 times occupying the 10 best U20 performances of all time in the 200 meters.
To kick off the season, he competed for the first time in a 200m indoor race in Liévin, France, where he won in a time of 20.21 seconds.[21]
On March 26, Knighton was provisionally suspended by the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) after testing positive for a metabolite of the anabolic steroid trenbolone (category S1 on the banned list, substance not specified). This suspension jeopardized his participation in the US Olympic trials. However, following a lengthy investigation, USADA cleared him in June after concluding that the positive result was due to the consumption of trenbolone-contaminated meat, thus allowing him to take part in the US trials.[22] [23]
At the US Olympic trials, he placed third in the 200 m with a time of 19.77 seconds, qualifying for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.[24]
During the Paris Olympic Games, Knighton easily won his heat with a time of 19.99, the second-best time in the heats. In the semi-final, he came out on top in 20.09, after a close battle with Zimbabwean Tapiwanashe Makarawu and Liberian Joseph Fahnbulleh, despite a setback a few meters from the finish.[25] In the final, the American crossed the line in 19.99 seconds, failing to make the podium behind Botswana's Letsile Tebogo and his two compatriots Kenneth Bednarek and Noah Lyles.[26] [27]
The week after the Olympics ended, the Athletics Integrity Unit launched an appeal with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) against United States Anti-Doping Agency's decision regarding Knighton's positive drugs test.[28] [29]
Information from World Athletics profile unless otherwise noted.
| Distance | Time (s) | Wind | Location | Date | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 100 meters | 10.04 | -0.1 m/s | Gainesville, FL, U.S. | April 16, 2022 | |
| 9.98 | +2.1 m/s | Gainesville, FL, U.S. | April 1, 2023 | Wind-assisted | |
| 150 meters | 14.85 | +1.4 m/s | Atlanta, GA, U.S. | May 6, 2023 | |
| 200 meters | 19.49 | +1.4 m/s | Baton Rouge, LA, U.S. | April 30, 2022 | |
| 200 meters (i)[30] | 20.21 | - | Arena Stade Couvert, Liévin (FRA) | February 10, 2024 | |
| 400 meters | 46.15 | - | Gainesville, FL, U.S. | April 15, 2023 | |
| Youth and junior achievements | |||||
| 200 meters | 19.84 | +0.3 m/s | Eugene, OR, U.S. | June 27, 2021 | World under-18 best |
| 19.69 | -0.3 m/s | Eugene, OR, U.S. | June 26, 2022 | World under-20 record | |
| 2021 | Olympic Games | Tokyo, Japan | 4th | 200 m | 19.93 | |
| 2022 | World Championships | Eugene, OR, United States | 3rd | 200 m | 19.80 | |
| 2023 | World Championships | Budapest, Hungary | bgcolor=silver | 2nd | 200 m | 19.75 |
| 2024 | Olympic Games | Paris, France | 4th | 200 m | 19.99 | |
| Year | Competition | Venue | Position | Event | Time | Wind (m/s) | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 3rd | 200 m | 19.84 | +0.3 | ||||
| 2022 | bgcolor=silver | 2nd | 200 m | 19.69 | −0.3 | |||
| 2023 | bgcolor=gold | 1st | 200 m | 19.72 | −0.1 | |||
| 2024 | U.S. Olympic Trials | Eugene, Oregon | 3rd | 200 m | 19.77 | +0.5 |
Rising Star (Men)：2021,[31] [32] 2022[33]