Merritt Broke Long-Standing 110H MR In 2006

The 28-year-old meet record in the 110-meter hurdles looked finally ready to be taken down at the 2006 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships in Sacramento, California.

After all, Aries Merritt of Tennessee had run just as fast as the 13.22 MR set by Greg Foster of UCLA in 1978 with a 13.22 of his own at the recent SEC Outdoor Championships. The pair thus shared No. 2 on the all-time collegiate list behind Maryland’s Renaldo Nehemiah’s then-world record of 13.00 in 1979.

Everything seemed right until Merritt ran the third leg of the Volunteers’ second-place 4×100-meter relay team.

“He contributed mightily,” Vols coach Bill Webb told Jon Hendershott of Track & Field News. “He brought us up to 2nd [from 6th].”

“I was exhausted after the 4×1 and had no time to work on approaches,” Merritt explained to Hendershott. “I was doing drills over 30-inch hurdles again. I spent most of my time just sitting, drinking Gatorade and water and stretching.”

Less than an hour later, the hurdles final started evenly, but by the third barrier Merritt had control and began to run away with the race, crossing the line in 13.21 to take down the oldest MR on the books at the time.

Merritt’s winning margin of 0.28 seconds was – and still is – the largest in the event since Nehemiah’s gargantuan 0.64 in 1979, when he ran a wind-aided 12.91.

Afterwards Merritt was critical of himself, saying “there’s never a flawless race in the hurdles.”

Some may beg to differ. Merritt’s post-collegiate career reached its zenith 2012, when he won Olympic gold in London and a month later broke the still-standing world record of 12.80.