Auburn’s Ja’Kobe Tharp Just Ran the Fastest 110m Hurdles in Human History — at NCAAs

College athletes aren’t supposed to break world records. That’s the unwritten rule of track and field: you go pro, you get the shoe deal, you spend years fine-tuning your craft, and then — maybe — you chase history. Ja’Kobe Tharp didn’t get the memo.

On Wednesday at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon, the Auburn junior ran 12.75 seconds in the 110m hurdles semifinals at the NCAA Track and Field Championships, breaking Aries Merritt’s world record of 12.80 that had stood since 2012. The wind reading was a legal 1.0 meters per second tailwind, well under the 2.0 limit — so the record is clean and official.

A record 50 years in the making

To understand how rare this is, consider the history: Tharp is the first man to break a world record at the NCAA Championships since high jumper Dwight Stones did it in 1976 — and in a fitting twist, Stones was on the ESPN broadcast calling Wednesday’s race. Tharp also becomes the only American man currently holding an active world record in an individual Olympic event, taking that distinction over from Merritt, who now coaches at Texas State.

What makes the run even more remarkable is the leap Tharp made. His previous personal best was 13.01, set when he won the 2025 USA Outdoor title — a time that didn’t even crack the 30 fastest performances in history. In one race, the 6-foot-4 Murfreesboro, Tennessee native jumped from very good to the greatest of all time. He placed sixth at his World Championships debut last September, two weeks before he turned 20.

The student of the event

Here’s the detail young athletes should steal: Tharp studies film. On nights before big meets, he rewatches the fastest hurdles races ever run. On Tuesday night, the playlist included Merritt’s 12.80 world record. Less than 24 hours later, he owned it.

And he wasn’t even satisfied. “My last three hurdles were kind of trash,” Tharp told ESPN afterward, insisting the race was far from perfect and that he has more in his legs. When a world record holder says his technique broke down late, that’s not arrogance — it’s a warning to the rest of the field, including stars like Grant Holloway (12.81 in 2021) and Devon Allen (12.84 in 2022), who both came within a hundredth or three of Merritt’s mark and never got there.

The 110m hurdles record books now run through a college campus in Alabama. With the LA Grand Prix coming Sunday and the professional season ramping up, the question isn’t whether Tharp belongs with the pros. It’s whether anyone can catch him.

Source: NBC Sports