Coleman winning the Brooks PR Invitational in 2014
Christian Coleman has reached the highest peak in our sport: He was the 2019 World Champion in the 100m dash. Coleman is just one of the members of the class of 2023 GATFXCCA Hall of Fame and will be inducted on Saturday at the Coaches Clinic and hall of fame luncheon.
Click Here for information on the entire hall of fame class.
Coleman was clearly one of the all time greats for Georgia High school, but very few high school greats truly reach the pinnacle of the sport on the world stage. It's just that hard to do. But Coleman was able to pull it off in 2019 when he ran his lifetime PR of 9.76 in the 100m dash in the finals of the World Championships which took place in Doha, Qatar. For at least the year of 2019, Coleman was undoubtedly the fastest man on the planet. Coleman was also a world indoor track and field champion in 2018 in the 60m dash. He also owns the World record in the 60m dash with a time of 6.34 which he ran at the US Championships that year.
Coleman was a star in high school for St. Mary's Academy (formerly Our Lady of Mercy). He won five total state championships while in high school, completing the sweep of the 100/200/LJ his senior year. He finished high school with PR's of 10.29 in the 100, 21.10 in the 200, and 24-7.5 in the Long jump. At the time he graduated, his 100m time was the 3rd fastest in state history (it's currently the 4th fastest). The long jump and 200m performances just barely miss the top ten all time in Georgia history, but are still considered very elite.
So while he was clearly one of the greats when he graduated, he did not show anything otherworldly that would indicate he would end up being the best in the world one day. Success doesn't happen without long term, consistent hard work. And Coleman is a great example of that.
For College, he went on to the University of Tennessee where he immediately made a splash his freshman year by placing 6th in the 60m dash at the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships and placing 5th in the 100m dash at the outdoor championships. He also competed for team USA at the Pan American Junior Championships that summer. He won his first national championship in the indoor 200 in 2016, his sophomore year. And while that was his only national title that year, he did go on the make the U.S. Olympic team in 2016 in the 4x100m relay. In his junior year of college he dominated the NCAA sprint scene by sweeping the 60 and 200 at the indoor championships and also the 100 and 200 at the outdoor championships. After this dominant performance he turned pro and would go on to make his first world outdoor team in the 100 where he claimed his first global medal by placing 2nd in the 100m dash in the 2017 World Championships.
Also in 2017 he set out to prove that football fast is not as fast as track fast. When the sports world was buzzing about John Ross setting an NFL combine record in the 40 yard dash, everybody was comparing him to the world's best sprinters and wondering if he was faster. Coleman must have taken it personally because he then went to the University of Tennessee football facility and ran a full tenth of a second faster than Ross to set the world record in the 40 yard dash.
In total, Coleman has 8 medals at major track and field events on the world stage and has competed at 6 different Global Championships and Olympics. It's obvious why Coleman is going into the Hall of Fame this weekend. He truly is a legend in our sport in this state.
