EUGENE, OR (WTKR)- It may have been a preliminary heat, but Chesapeake's Grant Holloway did anything but the bare minimum.
Holloway cruised to victory in his heat, posting a time of 12.92 seconds, marking the fastest time in the world this year. It was also the second-fastest time of his career.
"You guys keep talking world record. My main focus is to make this team," Holloway told the NBC Sports broadcast following his event. "Regardless of what happens, regardless of how it happens, my main focus [is] make this team and then we'll be able to talk a little bit more once we're in Paris."
Holloway's personal best time in the 110 meter high hurdles is 12.81 seconds, just 0.01 seconds off the world record, a high-water mark that has stood since Aries Merritt set it back in 2012.
The Grassfield product has won the last three World Championships and is seeking his first Olympic gold medal. Holloway had to settle for silver in Tokyo back in 2021. His high school coach, Leroy Harper, knows his former athlete has been putting in the physical and mental work necessary to top the podium in Paris.
"The last [Olympics] he was in didn't go 100 percent as planned, but some restructuring, some refocusing and going in and continuing to get better at his craft and he's put himself in position to make the team again and go get the ultimate goal that he wants and that's Olympic gold," Harper said.
There will be plenty of excitement around Chesapeake and Hampton Roads for Holloway's run at Team USA. Harper still watches every one of his former sprinter's races that he can, but says when stakes are this high, he prefers to do so away from the masses.
"I don't really do the watch parties," he smiled. "I kind of sit alone and those same butterflies that I used to have when I'm sitting in the stands and giving him the pointers, they still come back, but that thing that we used to have together, we knew that when butterflies come, good things happen."
Holloway is back on the track in Eugene for the 110 meter high hurdles semifinals Thursday night at 8:01 PM.
