Grant Holloway wins the 2019 Bowerman Award

Florida’s Grant Holloway was announced as the 2019 Bowerman winner at a gala held at the Grande Lakes Resort, in Orlando, Florida. The Bowerman award is present to the most outstanding collegiate track and field athlete and is equivalent to the Heisman trophy that is award to the top college football player. The 21-year-old Holloway, a junior at the University of Florida has a superb season, winning the NCAA outdoor title in the 110m hurdles in a collegiate record time of 12.98 seconds. Holloway started his 2019 campaign by running a blistering 7.35 seconds to capture the NCAA Indoor 60m hurdles title. His winning time of 7.35 seconds was a national record.

Versatility

Holloway’s versatility was on full display during the season as he completed in the 100m, 200m and the long jump. In additional to his individual exploits, Holloway also performed relay duties in both the 4x100m and 4x400m for the Gators.  At the 2019 NCAA Outdoor Championship Holloway was a double champion winning the men’s 110m hurdles (12.98 seconds) and running the third leg on the victorious 4x100m (37.97 seconds) relay team.  The 37.97 seconds was a collegiate best for 2019. Holloway contributed 20 points of t the Gator’s 50-point total. The Gators finished second place finish behind National Champion, Texas Tech University (60 points).

The 2019 seasons saw Grant embarking on some memorable battles in the 110m hurdles with Kentucky’s Daniel Roberts.

World Champion

After his exploits at the NCAA in June 2019, Grant turned Pro and signed with Adidas. For most athletes the transition from college to the pro requires an adjustment period, but that was not the case for the versatile Holloway.  Holloway made the USA world championship team by virtue of his second place finished to Daniel Roberts at the USA Track and Field Championship to book his ticket to the Doha World Championship. Roberts posted a time 13.23 to Holloway’s 13.36 seconds.

 On the biggest stage and facing the greatest test of his life, Holloway not only made the men’s 110m hurdles finals in Doha but showed his championship pedigree by capturing the gold medal in a respective time of 13.10 seconds. Holloway defeated seasoned veterans such as Sergey Shubenkov, Pascal Martinot-Lagarde and Orlando Ortega to claim his first global senior title.

With the 2020 Tokyo Olympics on the horizon, a healthy Holloway is sure to embark on capturing more hardware. The future is indeed bright for the 2019 Bowerman winner.

Edited by Raymond Byfield

Grant Holloway picture courtesy of Joe Swift Photography