Kendra Harrison
Kendra Harrison in 2018
Personal information
NicknameKeni Harrison
Born (1992-09-18) September 18, 1992
Tennessee, U.S.
Home townClayton, North Carolina, U.S.
Height5 ft 4 in (163 cm)
Sport
CountryUnited States
SportTrack and field
Event(s)100 meters hurdles, 60 meters hurdles
College teamKentucky
TeamAdidas
Coached byEdrick Floréal
Achievements and titles
Personal bests
Medal record
Women's athletics
Representing the  United States
Olympic Games
Silver medal – second place2020 Tokyo100 m hurdles
World Championships
Silver medal – second place2019 Doha100 m hurdles
Bronze medal – third place2023 Budapest100 m hurdles
World Indoor Championships
Gold medal – first place2018 Birmingham60 m hurdles
NACAC Championships
Gold medal – first place2018 Toronto100 m hurdles
Representing Americas
Continental Cup
Silver medal – second place2018 Ostrava100 m hurdles

Kendra "Keni" Harrison (born September 18, 1992) is an American hurdler. Harrison held the world record in the women's 100 metres hurdles with a time of 12.20 seconds, set on July 22, 2016 at the London Müller Anniversary Games, breaking the previous world record of 12.21 seconds achieved nearly 28 years earlier by Bulgarian athlete Yordanka Donkova.

In college, she competed for the University of Kentucky Wildcats and in 2015 she won NCAA championship titles both indoors and outdoors. She was runner-up in the 100 m hurdles at the 2015 USA Outdoor Championships; at the 2016 Olympic Trials she placed sixth because she tripped, and missed qualifying for the Olympics. Between the US trials and the Olympic Games, she broke the 28 year-old world record. Harrison won the 60 m hurdles at the 2018 World Indoor Championship and the 100 m hurdles at the 2018 NACAC Championships. She placed second in the 100 m hurdles at the 2019 World Championship, and at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics held in 2021.

Career

Early life

Kendra Harrison was born in Tennessee on September 18, 1992, and adopted by Gary and Karon Harrison; she grew up in a large family with ten other children, eight of them also adopted.[1][2][3] Harrison's first sport was soccer; she took up track and field at Clayton High School in Clayton, North Carolina.[3] She soon became a leading scholastic hurdler, winning state championship titles at the 2010 and 2011 North Carolina Class 4A state meets; in 2011 she also won the 100 m hurdles at the New Balance Nationals and was named Gatorade North Carolina Girls Track & Field Athlete of the Year.[4]

College athletics

After graduating from Clayton High in 2011 Harrison went to Clemson University; as a freshman in 2012 she was Atlantic Coast Conference champion in the 400 m hurdles and the 4 × 400 m relay and qualified for the NCAA championships in both hurdles races.[5] She competed in the 2012 Olympic Trials in the 100 m hurdles but was eliminated in the heats.[5] In 2013, she placed fifth in the 100 m hurdles (12.88) and fourth in the 400 m hurdles (55.75) at the NCAA outdoor championships.[5][6]

Harrison transferred from Clemson to the University of Kentucky after the 2013 season, together with sprinter Dezerea Bryant and coach Tim Hall.[3] She continued to develop, winning both the 100 m hurdles (12.86) and the 400 m hurdles (54.76) at the 2014 Southeastern Conference (SEC) championships; she was the first athlete to win both events since 1999.[3] She entered the NCAA outdoor championships as the leading favorite and collegiate leader in the 400 m hurdles, but failed to match her personal best and lost to Texas A&M's Shamier Little; in the 100 m hurdles she placed fifth for the second consecutive year.[3][5][7]

Harrison injured her hamstring in the winter of 2014–15 and missed the early part of the 2015 indoor season.[8] She returned in time to win the 60 m hurdles at the SEC and NCAA indoor championships, setting personal bests in both meets; her time in the NCAA meet (7.87 seconds) ranked her fourth in the world that indoor season.[5] Harrison also won her first outdoor NCAA title in 2015, winning the 100 m hurdles in 12.55; in the 400 m hurdles she placed second to Little in a personal best 54.09, at that point the second-fastest in the world that year.[5][9]

In November 2015, Harrison was named as a 2016 recipient of the NCAA's Today's Top 10 Award, presented annually to 10 individuals who completed their athletic eligibility in the previous school year "for successes on the field, in the classroom and in the community."[10]

Professional

Following her graduation, University of Kentucky coach Edrick Floréal continued to train her.[11] At the 2015 United States championships, which doubled as trials for the World Championships in Beijing, Harrison decided to concentrate on the 100 m hurdles only; she set a personal all-conditions best of 12.46w in the heats and ran a wind-legal 12.56 in the final, placing a close second to 2008 Olympic Champion Dawn Harper-Nelson and qualifying for the American team.[9] The Americans were heavy favorites for the world championships, but underperformed; Harrison had a false start in the semi-finals and was disqualified.[12]

Harrison opened her 2016 indoor season winning the 60 metres hurdles in Lexington, Kentucky, Karlsruhe, Germany and Glasgow in 7.92.[13] In a tightly competed race at the 2016 USA Indoor Track and Field Championships, Harrison took second place by one hundredth of a second to Brianna Rollins, setting a personal record of 7.77 seconds and moving herself into 13th place on the all-time lists.[14] At the 2016 IAAF World Indoor Championships one week later, Harrison led the qualifying with 7.81 seconds. However, in the final she hit the first hurdle heavily and never recovered, ending in eighth while Nia Ali (the least favoured American) took the title.[15][16]

She began the outdoor season in April with the fastest opener recorded by a hurdler, 12.36 seconds, to go up to ninth on the all-time lists.[17] A run of 12.42 followed at the start of May. Then at the Prefontaine Classic in late May she perfectly cleared all the hurdles and won in a time of 12.24 seconds – the second fastest time in history after Yordanka Donkova's world record of 12.21 from 1988.[18] She was favored to win the 100 m hurdles at the 2016 United States Olympic Trials in early July, but only placed sixth in 12.62 and missed qualifying for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro; the three spots on the American Olympic team went to Rollins, Kristi Castlin and Ali.[19]

Harrison broke the 100 m world record on July 22, 2016 at the London Müller Anniversary Games, running 12.20 (+0.3 m/s) to lower Donkova's mark by one one-hundredth of a second; Rollins, Castlin and Ali placed second, third and fourth in the race.[20][21] The trackside clock in the record race initially stopped at 12.58, the unadjusted time of runner-up Rollins, as Harrison ducked under the timing beam at the finish line.[22]

In 2021, Harrison finally qualified for her first Olympics. On August 2, 2021, she won the silver medal in the 100 meter hurdles at the 2020 Tokyo Games.[23]

Achievements

Harrison (R) celebrates her 60 m hurdles victory at the 2018 World Indoor Championships held in Birmingham.

Personal bests

International competitions

Representing the  United States
YearCompetitionVenuePositionEventTime
2015 World Championships Beijing, China – (sf) 100 m hurdles DQ
2016 World Indoor Championships Portland, United States 8th 60 m hurdles 8.87
2017 World Championships London, United Kingdom 4th 100 m hurdles 12.74
2018 World Indoor Championships Birmingham, United Kingdom 1st 60 m hurdles 7.70
NACAC Championships Toronto, Canada 1st 100 m hurdles 12.55
IAAF Continental Cup Ostrava, Czech Republic 2nd 100 m hurdles 12.52
2019 World Championships Doha, Qatar 2nd 100 m hurdles 12.46
2021 Olympic Games Tokyo, Japan 2nd 100 m hurdles 12.52
2022 World Championships Eugene, OR, United States 2nd (sf) 100 m hurdles 12.271
2023 World Championships Budapest, Hungary 3rd 100 m hurdles 12.46

1Disqualified in the final

National titles

References

  1. ↑ "Kendra Harrison: A Passion for the Hurdles". The Hurdle Magazine. May 2014.
  2. ↑ "Olympic reject Harrison out to make a point". Archived from the original on February 10, 2018. Retrieved September 4, 2016.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Story, Mark (May 2, 2015). "Mark Story: From a superhero, UK track star Kendra Harrison finds her winning edge". Lexington Herald-Leader. Archived from the original on July 1, 2015. Retrieved June 28, 2015.
  4. ↑ "Harrison, Winfrey Named Gatorade NC Track Athletes of the Year". MileSplit. June 23, 2011. Retrieved June 28, 2015.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Kendra Harrison at Tilastopaja (registration required)
  6. ↑ Kendra Harrison Archived September 7, 2017, at the Wayback Machine. Clemson Tigers. Retrieved on May 30, 2016.
  7. ↑ Pfeifer, Jack (June 9, 2014). "NCAA FORMCHART—Women". Track & Field News. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved June 28, 2015.
  8. ↑ Most, Jake (June 12, 2015). "Hurdles 'nerd' Kendra Harrison an ideal fit at UK". UKAthletics.com. Archived from the original on June 13, 2015. Retrieved June 28, 2015.
  9. 1 2 Terwillegar, Kyle (June 27, 2015). "Seven More Collegians Qualify For IAAF World Championships at USATF Outdoors". U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association. Retrieved June 28, 2015.
  10. ↑ "Top college athletes to be honored by NCAA" (Press release). NCAA. November 12, 2015. Retrieved October 1, 2016.
  11. ↑ UKTF Alum Kendra Harrison Betters World-Lead in Germany Archived August 4, 2016, at the Wayback Machine. UKAthletics (February 6, 2016). Retrieved on 2016-05-30.
  12. ↑ Rowbottom, Mike (September 15, 2015). "Williams sisters keeping up family tradition in the sprint hurdles". International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF). Retrieved November 3, 2015.
  13. ↑ Minshull, Phil (February 6, 2016). World-leading times in sprints and hurdles in Karlsruhe. IAAF. Retrieved on 2016-05-30.
  14. ↑ metres-hurdles/indoor/women/senior Senior Indoor 60 Metres Hurdles women All Time Best. IAAF (2016). Retrieved on May 29, 2016.
  15. ↑ Kendra Harrison 12.63 Women's 100mH | Zurich Diamond League. Retrieved on September 10, 2016.
  16. ↑ Dennehy, Cathal (March 19, 2016). Report: women's 60m hurdles final – IAAF World Indoor Championships Portland 2016. IAAF. Retrieved on 2016-05-29.
  17. ↑ Minshull, Phil (April 9, 2016). Harrison flies to 12.36 in first 100m hurdles race of the year. IAAF. Retrieved on 2016-05-30.
  18. ↑ Sully, Kevin (May 28, 2016). Harrison and Jebet scare world records in Eugene – IAAF Diamond League. IAAF. Retrieved on 2016-05-30.
  19. ↑ O'Neill, Patrick (July 9, 2016). "Keni Harrison sees Olympic dreams drift away in tough final". The News & Observer. Retrieved July 22, 2016.
  20. ↑ "Kendra Harrison New WR 12.20s Women's 100mH | london Diamond League 2016". Archived from the original on February 10, 2018. Retrieved August 23, 2016.
  21. ↑ Zaccardi, Nick (July 22, 2016). "Keni Harrison breaks 100m hurdles world record after missing Olympic team". NBC Sports. Retrieved July 22, 2016.
  22. ↑ Brown, Matthew (July 22, 2016). "Harrison hurdles to world record in London – IAAF Diamond League". IAAF. Retrieved July 22, 2016.
  23. ↑ Schad, Tom. "American Keni Harrison wins silver medal in 100-meter hurdles at Tokyo Games". Yahoo! Sports. Retrieved August 1, 2021.
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