Olympic Champion in Shock Over NCAA’s Ja’Kobe Tharp Crushing World Record at 20

Ja’Kobe Tharp arrived in Eugene expecting to run fast. His personal best going into the meet was 13.01 seconds in the 110m hurdles. So he didn’t expect to rewrite history. The 20-year-old Auburn junior walked into the NCAA Championships with the hope of breaking sub-13 and left with a world record of 12.75. A mark so jaw-dropping that Olympic champion Masai Russell could only respond with disbelief.

Russell, an Olympic champion, recently became the second fastest 100m woman hurdler of all time when she clocked 12.14. Russel’s reaction may have been fueled with even more surprise, as the NCAA record at the NCAA (meet) was also the first time an outdoor world record had been set at the event. Tharp’s time stunned her, as was evident from her X post that read “12.75 wtffff.” And who can blame her for being shocked?

After all, world records simply aren’t broken at collegiate meets, let alone during the heats of an NCAA Outdoor Championships. She wasn’t the only one stunned as track and field journalists, fans watching on, and even influencers all had their jaws dropped. Even Tharp himself was dumbfounded after the race, saying, “I didn’t mean to, bro. Like I, I swear I didn’t mean to.”

He knew exactly what he had done. Mainly because he had spent the night before watching the best 110m hurdle races. From Aries Merritt’s 12.80 world record in 2012 to Grant Holloway’s NCAA record of 12.98 and more. Then to step out onto the track and become the first man in 50 years to break an outdoor world record at an NCAA championship? It was the day he didn’t even dream of.

12.75 wtffff

— Masai Russell OLY (@masai_russell) June 11, 2026

And after the start he had, few expected it. While Tharp’s break was good, Arkansas’ Jerome Campbell flew out of the gates. Then, between hurdle three and four, everything changed as Ja’Kobe Tharp switched gears and asserted himself. The commentator himself seemed shocked, and by hurdle five, the Auburn sprinter was gone.

“12.75 with one meter per second of wind, that is insane!” the ESPN commentator said, as per NCAA’s official video on X. “He improves his lifetime best by more than a quarter of a second in a semi-final and breaks Aries Merritt’s world record.”

Tharp himself couldn’t believe it, leaping around the track, his face the definition of the word shocked as he waited for confirmation. He did expect an improvement on his personal best of 13.01, even if he didn’t quite expect this, though.

“I knew I was ready to drop something crazy,” he told trackside reporters immediately after the race. “I knew what I was capable of, but I didn’t know about that. It wasn’t on my bingo chart for this meet, not at all. I’m speechless, seriously.”

His confidence doesn’t come as a surprise, especially given the 2026 he has had. Since he started his season in January, Ja’Kobe Tharp has won all but one race he has competed in. He also broke into the top 20 all-time in the 60m in March with two separate times. In hindsight, could anyone have guessed that a performance like this was coming?

Tharp reflects on his world record-breaking 110m hurdles run

To put what Ja’Kobe Tharp did in perspective, collegiate meets do not break world records. If they are, it’s rare and far with the last outdoor record broken in 1976. The last indoor record was broken over 20 years ago, and in the interim, few have been set. It does make the 20-year-old’s showcase that much more stunning, especially given the pressure.

After all, his rival, Kendrick Smallwood, clocked 13.02 in Heat 1 to take first place in the overall. It meant that Tharp knew he would have to come close to his personal best to make the cut. Even then, the 20-year-old Auburn sprinter only concentrated on what he could do.

“I’m always only focused on me,” Tharp said in his post-race conference. “I knew what I was capable of. I didn’t know about that, but [laughs] I did know that I still have faster than 13.0 on my legs.”

He added, “I mean, this meet, just like indoors, first round I wanted to go out there and send a message to everybody else that I’m here. ‘Cause I know earlier in the season people run the same time as me, and line up, and I kind of go 13.0, 13.0, 13.0. They’re like, “Oh, I can, I might get out there and get this guy.” But showing everybody that I’m here, and I’m here to stay.”

Tharp won the World U20 title in 2024 and the NCAA and US title in 2025, and then set an indoor college world record in the 60 this year. So the confidence was always there. Even then, he didn’t quite expect his legs to run that fast.

“I was going pretty fast. The last two hurdles were kind of s- kind of iffy, ’cause I was like, “Whoa, I think the hurdles are kind of coming up kind of fast.” I figured it’d be maybe 97, 98, match the meet record. But to see that, it was like, ah, I’m, I’m speechless, seriously.”

The stunned reaction from Masai Russell mirrored what almost everyone in the world was thinking. Yet for Tharp, the most remarkable part may be his belief that there is still more to come. That’s a frightening thought for a hurdling world that just watched a 20-year-old erase one of the sport’s longest-standing records.

The post Olympic Champion in Shock Over NCAA’s Ja’Kobe Tharp Crushing World Record at 20 appeared first on EssentiallySports.