USTFCCCA News & Notes
By Tyler Mayforth, USTFCCCA May 18, 2019   

Kenny Bednarek Runs Into The Record Book

Tailwind?

Headwind?

It doesn’t matter.

Kenny Bednarek is fast.

Bednarek turned the collegiate track & field world on its head this past weekend at the 2019 NJCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships in Hobbs, New Mexico.

It all started in the prelims of the 200 on Friday when Bednarek, a freshman at Indian Hills (Iowa) CC, turned the half lap in 19.49 (+6.1) and clocked the fastest wind-assisted time in world history. You’re reading that correctly – WORLD HISTORY.

Go ahead and watch it.

When you take into account record-legal and non-record-legal wind readings, only three men covered 200 meters in a shorter amount of time than Bednarek did on Friday: World record holder Usain Bolt, Yohan Blake and Michael Johnson. That’s not bad company.

Bednarek then one-upped himself on Saturday, if you can believe it.

We’ll just throw these numbers out there: 44.73 and 19.82 (-0.8).

Those were his winning marks in the finals of the 400 and 200, respectively.

He became just the second man in WORLD HISTORY to go sub-20 in the 200 and sub-45 in the 400 in the same day (Isaac Makwala was the first on July 6, 2014). Not only THAT, but he’s the youngest and the first American to do so (Makwala is from Botswana and was 28 in 2014).

Just watch him work.

Here’s some more history for you: Bednarek is now the third fastest collegian ever behind Walter Dix and Divine Oduduru. Bednarek, though, is the fastest in collegiate history into a headwind.