Erriyon Knighton
Knighton was named as World Athletics Male Rising Star of the Year in December

Erriyon Knighton has a short and to the point biography on his website.

There is a link to that. There is a link that leads to a video of an athlete who is neither on the track nor a professional.

The video opens with a shot of a football field.

The cheerleaders are on the sideline. A group of people are in the bleachers. There is a Friday Night Lights scene.

A slender, rangy figure in red gathers a kick return on his 10-yard line. He looks up, spots a hole in the onrushing defence and darts through, avoiding a tangle of limbs.

He hit halfway at the gallop. The final defender is pumping his thighs and straining his arms. It is in vain. The home team yells on the touchline as their man's easy, fluid stride eats up the field and carries him to the endzone.

It is just the start of a four-minute highlights reel, posted in June 2020.

Many were watching. Alabama, Florida State, Tennessee and others were preparing offers because of Knighton's speed, 6ft 3in frame, sure hands and aggression.

The points changed as the disease got worse. Knighton was sent in a different direction.

If high school season was still going, he would have played football.

Knighton focused on his side hustle: track, instead of playing football, as the school was shut down.

He was encouraged to run by his football coach as a way to improve his skills as a wide receiver.

Knighton started running track in the ninth grade.

You could have asked me what 100m was and I wouldn't have known. I didn't know anything about track.

I realized at the end of that year that I was kind of separated from the pack and faster than most people.

They have never caught up.

Knighton, who was unable to compete locally because of the lockdowns, took part in the Junior Olympics, just a couple of months after posting his latest football highlights video online.

Running in 200m against other 16-year-olds, he stormed home in 20.33 seconds. As you watch the footage, you can hear one voice from the stands swear in disbelief as the stagger unfurls and the extent of Knighton's yawning advantage is revealed.

At under-18 level, only Bolt had gone faster. Three Americans of any age went faster that year - Noah, Kenny and Josephus.

Knighton was going to be wearing spikes rather than shoulder pads.

His decision to become a professional in January 2021. He couldn't compete for his school anymore. He couldn't accept university scholarship offers.

He was on a path that had been used before. There were whispers that it was too much. Hubris are fed by hype.

Knighton says that after he announced it, he had a lot of people tell him that he wasn't ready.

I think they are not saying that right now. Knighton smiles.

In June, the then 17-year-old became the youngest American man in 57 years to make the United States Olympic athletics team.

Kenny Bednarek, Noah Lyles and Erriyon Knighton
Knighton (far right) with eventual Olympic silver and bronze medallists Kenny Bednarek and Noah Lyles after qualifying for the US team

He finished fourth in the 200m in Tokyo, one place outside of the medals.

That world record was set by Bolt? He beat it seven times in the build-up to the Olympics.

He's a rising star. The World Championships will be held in Oregon this summer. Knighton knows he has time for him if he runs fast.

Knighton, who turned 18 in January, said that he was upset that he had lost in Tokyo, but he had to think about the bigger picture.

I get called young every day, I am going to be 24 in the year of the Olympics, but I am still young. I think about that all the time.

That Tokyo experience is something no one can ever take from you, I will always have that experience. I try not to get caught up in the pressure.

I will get stronger and faster as I get older. I am not the perfect 200m runner, I am still learning.

Knighton is still learning. He is back in school, walking the corridors of his high school, brushing shoulders with his classmates and former football teammates. A little more money, a few free tracksuits, but the same teenager.

He remembers a lot of people wanting to take pictures with him at the beginning of the school year.

I think I signed an autograph that was chaotic.

It has calmed down now. Everyone just walks past me.

In other schools, people say to my class-mates that they go to school with Erriyon, but for people in my school they see me every day.

Over the next few years, they will be the only ones who know about Knighton.

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