By now, you have surely seen this video of Grant Holloway running a 6.51 60m over the weekend in Arkansas:

Grant Holloway is a cheat code.pic.twitter.com/GvaEDcunRr

— FloTrack (@FloTrack) January 26, 2019

That performance, which made the Florida junior the ninth-fastest 60m runner in NCAA history, is spectacular on its own, but the context surrounding it transcends the historical significance of a singular event. Holloway, the 60m hurdles NCAA record holder, had never run the flat 60m before Saturday, but the discipline has now joined an ever-expanding list of events that Holloway could compete in-- and potentially win-- at the NCAA Indoor Championships. His early-season marks have been so spectacular that it’s not far-fetched to imagine Holloway scoring enough points in his events alone to beat every other team in the country at NCAAs. 

Here are Holloway’s performances so far this season and their 2019 NCAA rank:

60m - 6.51 (#1 NCAA)

60m hurdles - 7.49 (#1 NCAA)

200m - 20.69 (#4 NCAA)

Long Jump - 8.02 (#2 NCAA)

4x400m - 3:04.45 (#3 NCAA)

Now, it’s highly unlikely that Holloway will enter all five of these events at NCAAs-- even for an athlete of his caliber, that’s an insane workload that would require him to run seven races between prelims and finals plus the long jump-- but adding the 60m to his usual NCAA indoor schedule (long jump, 60m hurdle and 4x400m) seems entirely reasonable; according to Florida coach Mike Holloway, it’s a plan he and his athlete were considering even before he ran 6.51. The chances of that plan happening would seem to be much higher now.

In attempting the quadruple, the possibility of Holloway contributing to as many as 40 points for the Gators-- 30 in his individual events and 10 as part of the 4x400m-- is very real. 40 points also just so happens to be the exact total that Florida won the indoor title with in 2018. An era of parity and low-scoring team champions and Holloway’s rapid ascension has created a potential perfect storm where he could almost literally carry the team to a title by himself.

Here would be Holloway’s schedule should he go for the long jump-60m hurdles-60m-4x400m slate in Birmingham:

Friday:

5:30 PM - Long Jump

6:17 PM - 60m Hurdles Prelims

7:07 PM - 60m Prelims

Saturday: 

4:40 PM - 60m Hurdles Final

5:20 PM - 60m Final

6:55 PM - 4x400m Final

The key to all this, as Florida head coach Mike Holloway discusses in the video at the top of this page, would be for Holloway to get a good long jump mark out of the way early so he’s not running up against the clock before the 60m hurdles prelims. Last year, the long jump started an hour and 25 minutes before the hurdles, but there will only be around 45 minutes between them in 2019. 

He shouldn’t have any issue qualifying out of the hurdle prelims regardless of what he does in the long jump, but the close proximity of the events prevents him from saving his best for the fifth and sixth jumps. Get off to a poor start in the long jump and the event could become a casualty to the rest of his schedule. 

But as we have seen so far this season, a season in which, unlike last year, Holloway enjoyed a healthy fall of training beforehand, the Florida superstar appears to be at a higher level of fitness than ever before. Coach Holloway has challenged his athlete to start strong in the long jump, and if that happens on March 8 in Birmingham, he’ll be in prime position to control the team race like no individual has ever before.