Outdoor Track and Field on Flotrack 2013

Marvin Bracy Beats Jeff Demps in First Race as a Professional

Jul 8, 2013 by Jimmy Stevenson

Two years ago Marvin Bracy was crowned victorious in the 100-meter dash at the 2011 USA Track and Field Junior Championships. His time, a blazing 10.05 (just barely wind-aided). The only other high school athlete from Florida to run faster was Jeff Demps, who is the co-holder of the junior world record (10.01).

Yesterday, in Bracy’s first race as a professional runner for adidas, he got to face Demps head to head. Forget what these guys ran in high school. This was a battle to determine who was the fastest man on that day, throw all the past accolades out the window.

Bracy hit the tape first.

The former Florida State Seminole, who decided to forego his remaining eligibility and shift all his focus to running professionally, took down an Olympic silver medalist in Demps by running a 10.18 to Demps’ second place finish of 10.42 at the Arena Games in Helversum, Netherlands yesterday.

What does the future hold for this young, highly motivated, rising superstar? Quite frankly, no one knows.

Entering the Indoor NCAA Championships this past winter, Bracy had the fastest 60m time in the NCAA, 6.54. At NCAAs he false started. He struggled through hamstring injuries in the spring and went pro before Outdoor NCAAs therefore unable to really rub shoulders with Charles Silmon of Texas Christian University. Silmon got third in the 100m at US Championships a couple weeks ago.

Bracy is not on top yet and has a lot of competition to deal with before he gets there. For him though, competition is not his biggest concern.

“My worst enemy is actually myself. I would have to be the one that chose to let the clock or the guy next to me to affect me,” says Bracy.

If he can fight through the personal battles, then there might be no stopping this young gun a few years from now.

Beating Demps was more than just taking down an Olympian. Bracy defeated a former football star from the University of Florida. And being a former FSU Seminole on the football field himself, when is it not exciting to defeat your rival, whether on the gridiron or the track?

Unlike Demps, who is both a professional sprinter and a pro football player in the NFL, Bracy decided to focus solely on sprinting, no juking or horizontal running.

On a public page where Bracy opens up the floor for anyone to ask him questions, he was asked, “Are you a track star or football player? Which one do [you] like better?”

Bracy responded, “Well now I’m a track star. But a few months ago I would’ve considered myself a football player running track.”

If that doesn’t surprise you coming from a 19-year old kid who just ran 10.18 in his first professional race, I don’t know what will. Maybe this does.

“2016 will be a definite possibility in Brazil, and many more Olympics to come,” says Bracy in an interview with the Orlando Sentinel.

The way this new “track star” is progressing... it would be a stretch to say he doesn’t at least have a shot.