Ja’Kobe Tharp came to the NCAA Outdoor Championships looking to chip away at his personal best of 13.01. On Wednesday at Hayward Field, the 20-year-old Auburn sophomore ran 12.75 seconds in the 110-meter hurdles. That is the fastest anyone has ever covered the distance.
The time, pending ratification, takes five hundredths of a second off the world record of 12.80 set by Aries Merritt in Brussels in 2012. It also wipes out Grant Holloway’s collegiate record of 12.98 from 2019.
What makes it stranger is the setting. According to Sports Illustrated, ESPN’s broadcast noted that no man had set a world record at the NCAA Championships since Dwight Stones cleared a high jump world record in 1976. Records like this usually come from the Olympics or a major Diamond League meet. They do not come from a college semifinal heat.
Tharp won that heat by more than a quarter of a second. Kendrick Smallwood of Texas finished second. Demario Prince of Baylor was third.
“I swear I didn’t mean to”
“I swear I didn’t mean to,” Tharp told reporters with a laugh. “I knew what I was capable of. I didn’t know about that, but I did know that I still had faster than 13 in my legs.”
In an Auburn team release he sounded steadier. “I knew going into this meet I would be in really good shape because we started deloading to hit my peak into this meet. It was about executing and doing it. I knew what I was capable of. I knew I had something faster than 13.0 in my legs.”
He kept coming back to one word. “I’m speechless, seriously.”
From cut basketball player to world-class hurdler
Tharp grew up in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, in a basketball family, as Sunday Guardian Live reported. His mother, Aminda, played college ball at Tennessee–Martin and Dyersburg State. His father, Jimmie Ware, played too. Ja’Kobe wanted the same career.
It did not work out. He got cut from his middle school basketball team in seventh grade. He joined track to stay active. His coach noticed the long stride on a kid who would eventually grow to 6’4″, and pointed him at the hurdles. By eighth grade he had won a Tennessee middle school state title.
At Rockvale High School in Rutherford County he played both sports. He helped his basketball team win a district title and added a Tennessee state title in the 110m hurdles. Auburn offered him a scholarship.
The rest came fast. In 2024 he took World U20 gold in Lima, Peru, in 13.05, the best junior time in the world that year. In 2025, at 19, he beat a field of seasoned professionals to win the USATF national title. He made the World Championships final in Tokyo a few months later and finished sixth. This past March, indoors in Fayetteville, Arkansas, he ran 7.32 in the 60m hurdles. That broke yet another Holloway collegiate record.
Heading into Eugene he had not lost an individual hurdles race all season.
The 110m hurdles final is set for Friday night at Hayward. A win would give Tharp back-to-back NCAA outdoor titles in the event. The last man to pull that off was Holloway in 2018 and 2019.
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