Tate Taylor capped a sensational summer of sprinting by winning three gold medals at the World U20 Track and Field Championships in Eugene, Oregon.
Taylor, an 18-year-old bound for Texas Tech, completed the sprint triple Sunday by anchoring the U.S. men’s 4x100m relay to victory in 38.16 seconds, a world U20 record.
Taylor was joined on the relay by Blake Hamilton, Dillon Mitchell and Kyler Brown.
Taylor previously won the 100m on Thursday and the 200m on Saturday at Hayward Field at the University of Oregon, becoming the first U.S. man to sweep both individual sprints at a U20 Worlds.
WORLD U20 CHAMPIONSHIPS: Full Results
Earlier this summer, Taylor beat the top pros in the Prefontaine Classic 200m, including Olympic gold medalist Letsile Tebogo of Botswana, on July 4.
Taylor ran a personal-best 19.75 seconds into a .9 meter-per-second headwind at Pre. The only teenagers to ever run faster were American Erriyon Knighton (19.49 at age 18) and Australian Gout Gout (19.67 at 18).
The U.S. finished the World U20 Championships with the most medals (24, breaking the record of 22 set by the Soviet Union in 1988) and gold medals (12, one shy of its record from 2004).
Also Sunday, the U.S. swept the women’s and men’s 4x400m relays.
Incoming Oregon freshman Simon Rosselli won the men’s discus by jumping from fifth place on a 66.39-meter final throw.
Rising University of Florida sophomore Claire Stegall earned silver in the women’s 1500m, diving at the finish line and crossing four hundredths behind Kenyan Josephine Sembeyo Mancha.
Jaxon Jerabek, who is headed to Virginia Tech, added bronze in the men’s pole vault.
The track and field season continues with the new World Athletics Ultimate Championship from Sept. 11-13 in Budapest.
