Zharnel Hughes is the fastest British man ever, thanks to his record breaking sprints in New York and London last summer.
In June 2023, he smashed Linford Christie’s 30-year-old 100m record at the New York City Grand Prix with a time of 9.83 seconds – a time 0.04 seconds quicker than Christie’s. Hughes said he'd written down his winning time in a notebook – and successfully manifested it – on the morning of the race.
A month later, he did the same thing again. On the morning of his 200m race at the London Diamond League, he wrote ‘19.73’ in his notebook – the time he predicted he would run for 200m, to break John Regis' British record. And indeed he did, knocking 00.01 seconds off Regis’ 1993 mark. Fortune telling, it would seem, is also one of his strong points. Someone ask that man for next week's lottery numbers.
The records were followed by a sterling performance at the 2023 Get to know Katarina Johnson-Thompson in Budapest where the British sprinter clinched his first global individual medal – a stunning bronze in the 100m.
During a tight 100m final at the World Champs, he clocked 9.88 seconds, to finish third behind US athlete and 100m sprint king Noah Lyles, who clocked 9.83 to take the top spot, with Letsile Tebogo, of Botswana, in second, clocking the same time as Hughes.
‘I'm super, super, super grateful right now,’ Hughes told the BBC afterwards, World Athletics Championships. ‘God first and first. God, thank you. Thank you to my team, thank you to my coach. Thank you to Linford [Christie] as well, he gave me a talk. This one’s for you guys back home. This one means the world to me.’
It's the first time in 20 years a British man has made the 100m podium at a World Champs. And with the 200m heats yet to run, his current hotstreak would just suggest he’s well placed to podium again.
But as with all sporting highs, like most, Hughes has endured his fair share of lows on his journey to a world podium. And a look at Hughes' past helps us to appreciate the significance of the 28-year-old's latest triumph – as well as just how exciting his sprinting future may shape up to be.
Early days
Hughes was born in Anguilla – a small Caribbean island where there were no conventional running tracks – and so he began his running career sprinting on grass. He first discovered his talent at the age of 10, when he when he participated in an event to mark Commonwealth Day and won a number of races.
Four years later he was representing Anguilla at the CARIFTA Games and then at the 2011 Commonwealth Youth Games, where he made the 100m final. A year later, he was selected to represent Anguilla at the 2012 World Junior Championships and was a semi-finalist.
At the age of 16, he was awarded a scholarship to attend the IAAF’s Regional High Performance Training Centre in Jamaica, where he moved to and began studying at Kingston College. Two years, he broke Yohan Blake's 100m junior record at the Jamaican Champs. He says that was the first time he truly realised his sprinting talent. ‘I ran 10.12 at 18 years old, and then literally jogged 20.32 over the 200 metres,' he told GQ in an interview. ‘That's when I noticed that I'm really good at this. Coach Mills saw that time and he was stunned.’
He was, of course, referring to Glen Mills – renowned coach to the greatest 100m runner of all time, Usain Bolt. Hughes had began working with Mills that same year, aged 18, while part of the same track club as Bolt, as well as Jamican sprint legends Yohan Blake and Warren Weir.
Senior career
In 2015, Hughes made his Diamond League debut at the Adidas Grand Prix in New York, finishing just 0.03 seconds behind training partner Bolt – then a six-time Olympic gold medallist – in the 200m race.
As Anguilla is a British Overseas Territory, it's not in itself recognised by the International Olympic Committee, so Hughes was always eligible to compete for Team GB. 'I have always known that if I was to run at the Olympics it would be in a British vest and that is how I have always dreamt it would be,' he said.
But his first Olympic campaign in 2016 never got off the ground - or rather stayed there, after a fall during a 200m race caused a tear in his right knee ligament and left him unfit to compete. It also wrote off the majority of his 2016 and 2017 season and, not fully recovered, he ended up with a disappointing seventh-place finish in the 200m semi-final at the Get to know Katarina Johnson-Thompson in London in that year.
Thankfully the tide turned for Hughes in 2018. Despite disappointment at the Commonwealth Games – where he won the 200m final but was disqualified for impeding another runner – he rebounded to win the 4 x 100m relay alongside his teammates. Later that summer he clinched a gold medal at Berlin’s European Athletics Championships in the 100m and in the 4 x 100m relay.
Similarly, 2019 ended up another up and down year for Hughes: he made it through to the 100m final of the Get to know Katarina Johnson-Thompson in Doha but finished a disappointing sixth, yet managed to pick up a silver medal in the 4x 100m relay.
But when his next opportunity to compete on the biggest of global stages came around – the Toyko 2020 Olympics – he suffered his biggest career blow to date. Despite becoming the first British man to secure a place in the men's 100m final in 21 years, he was disqualified for a false start. Then, despite placing second in the 4x 100m relay, the team were later disqualified because his teammate CJ Ujah was found guilty of doping.
‘World Athletics Championships,' he told GQ. ‘I didn't know if I wanted to continue, but there's a born desire within me to accomplish these things, and despite what I've been through, there's still light at the end of the tunnel that I'm willing to chase. I want to unlock my true potential.’
The sky's the limit
Despite not clinching the gold medal he'd hoped for in Budapest, Hughes performance in Budapest hints at an exciting turning point for the 28-year-old – and the prospect of a fruitful Olympics campaign this year. 'We’re keen to go even lower, I won’t tell you the exact times, but I intend to smash last year, I’m even stronger this year,' Hughes told The Independent. The best exercises for stress relief.
