Erriyon Knighton (born January 29, 2004)"ATHLETE PROFILE Erriyon KNIGHTON"
''

World Athletics World Athletics, formerly known as the International Amateur Athletic Federation and International Association of Athletics Federations and formerly abbreviated as the IAAF, is the international sports governing body, governing body for the sport ...

''. Retrieved June 25, 2021. is an American sprinter specializing in the

100 meters The 100 metres, or 100-meter dash, is a sprint race in track and field competitions. The shortest common outdoor running distance, the dash is one of the most popular and prestigious events in the sport of athletics. It has been contested at ...

and

200 meters The 200 metres, or 200-meter dash, is a sprint running event. On an outdoor 400-metre racetrack, the race begins on the curve and ends on the home straight, so a combination of techniques is needed to successfully run the race. A slight ...

. At the age of 18, he won the bronze medal in the 200 m at the

2022 World Athletics Championships The 2022 World Athletics Championships was the eighteenth edition of the World Athletics Championships. It was held at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon, United States, from July 15–24, 2022, with the country hosting that competition for the ...

, becoming the youngest ever individual sprint medalist in Championships history. He is the 2023 U.S. Champion in the

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) makes him the sixth-fastest athlete in history over the distance, only surpassed by

Usain Bolt Usain St. Leo Bolt (; born 21 August 1986) is a Jamaican retired sprinter who is widely regarded as the greatest sprinter of all time. He is an eight-time Olympic gold medalist and the world record holder in the 100 metres, 200 metres, ...

Yohan Blake Yohan Blake (born 26 December 1989) is a Jamaican sprinter specialising in the 100 metres, 100-metre and 200 metres, 200-metre sprint races. He won gold at the 100 m at the 2011 World Athletics Championships as the youngest 100 m world champion ...

Noah Lyles Noah Lyles (born July 18, 1997) is an American track and field Sprint (running), sprinter who competes in the 60 meters, 100 metres, 100 meters and 200 metres, 200 meters events. His personal best of 19.31 seconds in the 200 m is the List of Un ...

, Michael Johnson and

Letsile Tebogo Letsile Tebogo (; born 7 June 2003) is a Botswana sprinter. He won the gold medal at the 2024 Summer Olympics in the 200 metres event, with his win earning the first-ever Olympic gold medal for Botswana. He also won the silver medal at th ...

. It was also the fastest season opener ever. In 2022, Knighton became the first athlete in history to win a second

Male Rising Star of the Year award.

Career

Junior career

Erriyon Knighton started participating in

track and field Track and field (or athletics in British English) is a sport that includes Competition#Sports, athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name used in North America is derived from where the sport takes place, a ru ...

in 2019 as a freshman at Hillsborough High School in

Tampa, Florida Tampa ( ) is a city on the Gulf Coast of the United States, Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. Tampa's borders include the north shore of Tampa Bay and the east shore of Old Tampa Bay. Tampa is the largest city in the Tampa Bay area and t ...

. During his time there, he ran the second fastest time over

for an under-18 athlete in world history, clocking 20.33 seconds in the final at the 2020

USA Track & Field USA Track & Field (USATF) is a United States national governing body for the sports of track and field, cross country running, road running, and racewalking (known as the sport of athletics outside the US). The USATF was known between 1979 and 1 ...

Junior Olympics in

Satellite Beach, Florida Satellite Beach is a coastal city in Brevard County, Florida, U.S. The population was 11,226 at the 2020 United States census, up from 10,109 at the 2010 census, and it is located with the Atlantic Ocean to the east and the Banana River to the ...

.Hollobaugh, Jeff (February 2021)
"Teen Sprint Sensation Erriyon Knighton Goes Pro"
''

Track & Field News ''Track & Field News'' is an American monthly sports magazine founded in 1948 by brothers Bert Nelson and Cordner Nelson, focused on the world of track and field Track and field (or athletics in British English) is a sport that includ ...

''. Retrieved June 1, 2021. He also played for Hillsborough's football team as a wide receiver; rated a four-star recruit by

247Sports.com 247Sports is an American network of websites that focus mainly on athletic recruitment in college football and basketball. It is owned and operated by Paramount. The website hosts a large network of team-specific subsites, with each subsite bei ...

, he received scholarship offers from schools including Alabama, Auburn, Florida State, and Florida.

2021

At age 16 in January, Knighton signed a sponsorship deal with

Adidas Adidas AG (; stylized in all lowercase since 1949) is a German athletic apparel and footwear corporation headquartered in Herzogenaurach, Bavaria, Germany. It is the largest sportswear manufacturer in Europe, and the second largest in the ...

in his junior year of high school, forgoing his remaining two years of amateur competition at Hillsborough High. On May 2, he broke the

10-second barrier The 10-second barrier is the physical and psychological barrier of completing the 100 metres sprint in under ten seconds. The achievement is traditionally regarded as the hallmark of a world-class male sprinter. Its significance has become less ...

over

at the PURE Athletics Sprint Elite Meet in

Clermont, Florida Clermont is the most populous city in Lake County, Florida, Lake County, within the U.S. state of Florida. The population was 43,021 in 2020. It is about west of Orlando, Florida, Orlando and southeast of Leesburg, Florida, Leesburg. The cit ...

, 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.Mull, Cory (May 2, 2021)
"Erriyon Knighton, 17, Drops Insane 9.99 For 100 Meters"
''MileSplit''. Retrieved June 1, 2021. 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

's best by two hundredths of a second. 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 The officially the and officially branded as were an international multi-sport event that was held from 23 July to 8 August 2021 in Tokyo, Japan, with some of the preliminary sporting events beginning on 21 July 2021. Tokyo ...

. At the Tokyo Games, Knighton became the youngest male to represent the United States in track and field since

Jim Ryun James Ronald Ryun (born April 29, 1947) is an American former Republican Party (United States), Republican politician and Olympic track and field athlete, who at his peak was widely considered the world's top middle-distance runner. He won a si ...

in 1964. 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. In the final he finished in fourth with a time of 19.93 seconds.

2022

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. 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 In sport, a championship is a competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion. Championship systems Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship. Title match system In this sys ...

history. He also became the youngest winner of a

Diamond League The Diamond League is an annual series of elite track and field athletic competitions comprising fifteen invitational athletics meetings. The series sits in the top tier of the World Athletics one-day meet competitions. The inaugural season was ...

race with his 200 m victory on September 2 in

Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...

2023

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. At the

2023 World Athletics Championships The 2023 World Athletics Championships (), the nineteenth edition of the World Athletics Championships, were held from 19 to 27 August 2023 at the National Athletics Centre (Budapest), National Athletics Centre, in Budapest, Hungary. The tourna ...

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

, who won comfortably with a time of 19.52 seconds. At the end of the season in September, he finished third in the 200 m final of the

Eugene Eugene may refer to: People and fictional characters * Eugene (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * Gene Eugene, stage name of Canadian born actor, record producer, engineer, composer and musi ...

with a time of 19.97 seconds. 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.

2024

He started his season with a 200m indoor race in Liévin, France, where he won in a time of 20.21 seconds. 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 Trenbolone is an androgen and anabolic steroid (AAS) of the nandrolone group which itself was never marketed. Trenbolone ester prodrugs, including trenbolone acetate (brand names Finajet, Finaplix, others) and trenbolone hexahydrobenzylcarbonat ...

. In June the USADA accepted Knighton's explanation that the source of the trenbolone was contaminated meat and ruled that he bore "no fault or negligence" for the positive test. He therefore received no sanction. 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 The 2024 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad () and branded as Paris 2024, were an international multi-sport event held in France from 26 July to 11 August 2024, with several events started from 24 July. P ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

. During the Olympic Games, Knighton recorded times in the 200m of 19.99 in the heats and 20.09 in the semi-final. In the final, Knighton finished in fourth place with a time of 19.99 seconds. In early August, after the Olympics ended, the

Athletics Integrity Unit The Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) is a Monaco-based organization founded by World Athletics in April 2017 to combat doping and address other forms of ethical misconduct in the sport of athletics. It operates independently from World Athletics ...

launched an appeal with the

Court of Arbitration for Sport The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS; , TAS) is an international body established in 1984 to settle disputes related to sport through arbitration. Its headquarters are in Lausanne, Switzerland, and its courts are located in New York City, Sy ...

(CAS) against United States Anti-Doping Agency's decision regarding Knighton's positive drugs test.

Achievements

Information from

profile unless otherwise noted.

Personal bests

International competitions

Circuit wins

2022 The year began with another wave in the COVID-19 pandemic, with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant, Omicron spreading rapidly and becoming the dominant variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus worldwide. Tracking a decrease in cases and deaths, 2022 saw ...

(200 m): Brussels Memorial Van Damme **

2023 Catastrophic natural disasters in 2023 included the Lists of 21st-century earthquakes, 5th-deadliest earthquake of the 21st century 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquakes, striking Turkey and Syria, leaving up to 62,000 people dead; Cyclone Freddy ...

(200 m): Golden Gala (Florence),

Bislett Games The Bislett Games is an annual track and field meeting at the Bislett Stadium in Oslo, Norway. Previously one of the IAAF Golden League events, it is now part of the Diamond League. History The first international athletics meeting at Bislett ...

World Athletics Continental Tour The World Athletics Continental Tour is an annual series of independent track and field athletic competitions, recognised by World Athletics (formerly known as the IAAF). The Tour forms the second tier of international one-day meetings after the ...

(200 m):

Gyulai István Memorial The Gyulai István Memorial is an annual track and field meet that takes place at Bregyó közi Regionális Atlétika Központ in Székesfehérvár, Hungary. It was first held in 2011 at the Ferenc Puskás Stadium in Budapest. The meeting is part ...

(200 m): Irena Szewinska Memorial **

2024 The year saw the list of ongoing armed conflicts, continuation of major armed conflicts, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Myanmar civil war (2021–present), Myanmar civil war, the Sudanese civil war (2023–present), Sudane ...

(200 m): Zagreb Hanžeković Memorial

National championships

Awards

World Athletics Awards The World Athletics Awards are annual awards to honor athletes participating in events within the sport of athletics. These are organised by World Athletics and include track and field, cross country running, road running, and racewalking. The ...

:: Rising Star (Men)：2021, 2022

References

External links

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Knighton, Erriyon 2004 births Living people African-American track and field athletes American male sprinters Sportspeople from Tampa, Florida Track and field athletes from Florida Athletes (track and field) at the 2020 Summer Olympics Olympic track and field athletes for the United States 21st-century African-American sportsmen World Athletics Championships medalists Athletes (track and field) at the 2024 Summer Olympics 21st-century American sportsmen