American Ja’Kobe Tharp broke the 110m hurdles world record with a blistering time of 12.75sec at the NCAA outdoor track and field championships at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon, on Wednesday.
Tharp’s effort in the heats of the 110m hurdles improved upon the previous world record mark of 12.80sec, set by Olympic champion and fellow American Aries Merritt in Brussels in 2012.
The performance, run with a legal tailwind of 1.0m/s, also shattered Grant Holloway’s NCAA record of 12.98sec set in 2019. It was the first world record to be set at an NCAA championships since 1976, when Dwight Stones had a record mark in the high jump.
The 20-year-old Auburn University standout came into the meeting with a personal best of 13.01sec.
“I knew I had that in my legs. But it wasn’t on my bingo card before this meet, not at all,” he told reporters after the race. “I was going pretty fast. The last three hurdles were kind of iffy. I was like, ‘Whoa, I’m coming up kind of fast.’ I thought maybe 12.97 or 12.98, and match the speed record. But to see that, it was like, ‘Ahhhh!’ I’m speechless, seriously … I really wanted to make a statement today.”
Tharp, an under-20s world champion, ran in the 110m hurdles final at the 2025 world championships in Tokyo, finishing sixth.