Cordell Tinch is the world champion in the 110m hurdles, completing a fairytale story after he sold phones, installed cable and operated machinery that made toilet paper during a three-year break from track.
Tinch, a 25-year-old from Wisconsin who missed the 2024 Olympic team by one spot, won Tuesday’s final in 12.99 seconds.
Jamaicans Orlando Bennett and Tyler Mason took silver and bronze at the World Championships in Tokyo.
“I don’t think that I make it to where I am now if I don’t ever take that break to find myself,” Tinch said before worlds. “Finding myself was the biggest part of all of that. Just because at the time, I don’t think I was a very happy person.”
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Grant Holloway, the 2024 Olympic gold medalist and three-time defending world champion, was eliminated in the semifinals.
Holloway, who said he has practiced well but hasn’t translated it into races, was seeded ninth going into worlds by best times of 2025.
“This has been my worst season by far on paper,” Holloway told Lewis Johnson on NBC Sports. “Just never really got clicking throughout this whole year. Nothing sucks more than training really hard and still getting the same results.”
Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone shatters American record
In the 400m semifinals, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone shattered the American record by clocking 48.29, the 11th-fastest time in history.
“Wasn’t expecting that,” she said. “Clearly shows me that my fitness is there.”
McLaughlin-Levrone, whose previous best was 48.74, took down the American record of 48.70 recorded by Sanya Richards-Ross on this day in 2006.
In Thursday’s final, McLaughlin-Levrone faces a field including Marileidy Paulino of the Dominican Republic, who won the 2024 Olympic title in 48.17. That’s the only time run by anybody in the last five years that is faster than McLaughlin-Levrone’s 48.29.
McLaughlin-Levrone, the two-time Olympic gold medalist and six-time world record breaker in the 400m hurdles, switched to the flat 400m this season in a bid to become the first person to win world titles in each one-lap event.
In the 800m, 2019 World champion Donavan Brazier — who spent years in injury wilderness — led the qualifiers into Thursday’s semifinals.
Cooper Lutkenhaus, at 16 the youngest American to ever compete in any World Track and Field Championships event, was eliminated with a seventh-place finish in his first-round heat.
