Team USA’s best and brightest flirt with world’s top marks  

Records are made to be broken.

That’s how the old saying goes. World records in the sport of athletics are concrete and definite targets standing between athletes and immortality. They’re targets to aim for, goals to dream about, and they make the pain of constant training and toil worth the effort.

World records leave no room for debate or doubt. Sometimes they’re broken. They can stand untouched for decades too. World records are the domain of only the best of the best. And while the holders of these records are ever in flux, the records themselves are constant.

“I was this close,” Rai Benjamin groaned, holding his thumb and forefinger close together talking to media after he came within a fraction of a second of breaking the world record of 46.78 set by Andrew Young at the 1992 Summer Games in Barcelona. “I looked at it and I was like point zero five, point zero five – That’s not even anything. It hurts a little bit to know that it was right there and I couldn’t grab it, but it's just more fuel for the fire."

READ | U.S. Trials Day 9 Wrap-Up | RESULTS

Benjamin, the superstar of the 400 hurdles, booked his first ticket to the Olympics on Saturday by breaking a trials record set by Edwin Moses in 1988. It was also the second-fastest time ever run in the event. At this point it seems not a matter of if he will break the near-three decades'-old world record, but when. The Olympic Games of Tokyo 2020 (in 2021), on the biggest stage of them all, seems like an appropriate time and place.

“I'm kind of happy I didn't do it now because… if I would have broken the world record now, what would I do in Tokyo?” he asked rhetorically after finishing first in the 400m hurdles final with an astonishing time of 46.83. “So we're just building towards it then. And hopefully I get it first and…we'll see what happens.”

Hurdler Holloway aims to go all the way

Grant Holloway, like Benjamin, sent a clear message that he might be the man to beat the 110m hurdle world record of 12.80 held by London 2012 gold medallist Aries Merritt.

In his first race at Trials on Friday night, Holloway blazed out of the blocks. “I didn’t come to the dance to stand on the wall,” he said, unused energy forcing him to bounce on the balls of his feet after the race. “I came to dance!”

READ | Hurdler Holloway "Came to Dance"

His time of 13.11 was impressive enough, but he made it look ordinary on Saturday in the semi-finals when his 12.81 stood up as a personal best, U.S. Trials record and world lead for the year. The buzz around Hayward Field, melting in the grip of a once-in-a-century heat wave, reached fever pitch in the finals, later that night, but Holloway couldn’t give the crowd what they wanted.

And so the dance continues. And what better place for that record to fall than in Tokyo?

“We’ll find out,” is what Holloway had to say when asked if he can beat the world record. “At this point, it’s definitely possible. A lot of people said I couldn’t. I just need to execute at a very high level and find ways to keep getting better.

“I wasn’t pressing for the record,” he insisted after his races in Oregon, where the 2019 world champion booked a spot in his first Olympic Games. “I wasn’t pressing to not get the record either; the main goal was just to let everyone know that I’m here to win.”

Thomas threatens Flo-Jo’s record; Muhammad keen to keep hers

Gabby Thomas, the Harvard University graduate headed for superstardom, also flirted with the record books on Saturday. Her 21.61 in the women’s 200m was a third consecutive personal best at these Trials. It earned her a first trip to the Olympics and it started the talk, inevitable it seems, of world record-breaking goals and hopes.

When asked what it meant to be approaching Florence Griffith-Joyner’s long-held record (21.34), which has stood strong since the 1988 Olympics in South Korea, Thomas was at a genuine loss for words. “I have yet to process that,” she said deliberately, when compared, if indirectly, with the sport's fastest woman. “I haven't thought about it until you said it right now. I don't know, it just it means so much to me. I remember my first time watching a track meet with watching Allyson Felix, like 10 years ago now. And to be making a team with her and to be here and running that fast, I just I really cannot believe it."

Dalilah Muhammad was also in action on Saturday in Oregon, and it’s her world record in the women’s 400m hurdles that will be under attack in Sunday’s final. One Sydney McLaughlin is taking dead aim at it and it's worth noting that the last two times these two raced, the world record fell.

Muhammad has held the world’s top time in the event since October 4, 2019 and she might need to break her own record tomorrow if she wants to keep hold of top spot.

Legend-in-the-making in women’s hammer throw

A world record was threatened inside the track too.

DeAnna Price bested her own American record with a huge last throw of 80.31 in the women’s hammer throw. It was the second time she beat the national record at these Trials. She became the first American woman in history to throw over 80 meters (80.31) and just the seventh woman overall to throw that far.

“When I saw the number was over 80m, it was just mind-blowing,” she said, unable to process the feat. “It’s insane. I still can’t even believe it.

“To even be in the same sentence as Anita, is just, holy moly,” she added of approaching the world record held by her idol and throw legend, Anita Wlodarczyk, since August of 2016. “Getting close to her [Wlodarczyk] is really pretty crazy. To be the seventh woman to ever throw over 80m is a true honour. It’s still something I can’t believe.”

With one more day to go at the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials, a world record might still fall. After all, they’re made to be broken and these athletes on hand in Eugene, Oregon are among the ones made to do the breaking.