The 400 meter dash is a race that separates fast men from true track and field athletes. Which is probably why many high school athletes try to avoid running it. Yet it is undeniable that if you can win that event, you really are one of the kings of the track. At the 2023 World Championships one of the greatest 400 meter runners on the planet right now, was nowhere to be found. Michael Norman wasn’t there. Which was shocking after he won it all in 2022. He was expected to repeat as the world’s best. And surprisingly he has only won 1 gold medal at any major championship to this point. No disrespect to everyone else, but if you don’t beat the man who is fourth fastest all-time, and the best we have seen in almost a decade, you aren’t really the best yet.

The truth is that Michael Norman is a once in a generation talent, who has everything it takes to win the Olympics and break the World Record in the 400 meter dash. His absence in 2023 is proof that it is exactly what he is betting on. Honestly, it it’s the only thing standing in his way to becoming the greatest 400 meter runner of all time.

Can anyone break the 400 meter world record?

Michael Norman is so good at what he does, that it’s disrespectful to pretend that anyone has a legitimate shot at beating him, if he simply does what he is supposed to. Since Wayde Van Niekerk broke the 400 meter world record in 2016, he is the only legitimate challenger for the record to touch the track since. Wayde may still be on the track now, but he last won a medal of any color in 2017. So it’s safe to say, his best days are behind him. Track fans are blinded by fast times and since his performance in the Olympics, nobody else has ever come as close as Michael Norman to giving us something to pay attention to. 

How good was Michael Norman in high school?

At the high school level Michael Norman was a phenom, the likes of which we hardly ever get to see. It’s possible to list all of his high school accolades, but that would be disrespectful to how good he really was. So instead just consider that Michael Norman was literally on the same level as Noah Lyles when they were in high school together. They dominated so much and were so far ahead of their competition that they didn’t hardly lose a race until they faced off against each other, in the 200 meter dash at the Olympic Trials. Remember they were still in high school and they both made the finals finishing fourth and fifth. They just barely missed out on making team USA. The only difference between them is Michael went to college at USC after that, and Noah famously turned pro and hasn’t looked back ever since.

How good was Michael Norman in college?

At that time Michael Norman was considered a great 200 meter runner, but he is now most famous for the 400. As far as his college career is concerned, Michael Norman was the real deal. As a freshman he proved to be a finalist in the NCAA 400 outdoors after winning the Pac-12 in that event. But as a sophomore he ran the table, winning the NCAA 400 meter dash both indoors and outdoors. Michael only ran in college for 1 indoor season and 2 outdoor seasons. He went undefeated in every Pac 12 conference race he ever ran, in the 200, 400, and 4x400. If he was on the track he was going to win. His fastest wind legal 200 was 20.06 into a heavy negative head wind. And in the 400 meter dash, he broke the collegiate record because why shouldn’t he.

What happened to Michael Norman as a pro?

After his sophomore season Michael Norman turned professional and the expectations were high for him. Up until that point Michael was destined to break the World Record in the 400 meter dash. And he validated it going forward by running 19.70 in the 200 meter dash and 9.86 in the 100 meter dash in the 2 years after joining the pro circuit. As fast as Michael Norman was, in any event that he runs, he didn’t even make the finals in any event at the World Championships in 2019.  Michael Norman is faster than Wayde Van Niekerk ever was in the 200 meter dash, and the 100 meter dash already. They are both 1 of 3 men to break 10 seconds in the 100, 20 seconds in the 200, and 44 seconds in the 400. The other is Fred Kerley, and he’s convinced that he’s a 100 meter sprinter about now. The only man on the planet with the talent to break the World Record is Michael Norman right now, so if he doesn’t do it, we don’t know when anyone else ever will.

From 2019 on down, the world has been waiting for Michael Norman to win, and win big in any major race that he enters. Everything else he does is just a formality. If he runs fast on the Diamond League, it’s just Michael doing Michael things, and nobody can really get too excited about it. He’s so good it’s boring to watch, and if he loses then all of a sudden that is the story. The Olympics were delayed until 2021 when he did make the 400 meter final, but he finished fifth, which is not supposed to happen, when you are that good! But he finally did what we all knew he could and won the world in 2022. He didn’t run a new PR to do it, because he didn’t need to. That race was just proving to himself that he was as good as everyone else already knew him to be. In 2023 he was expected to win it all again in the 400, but Michael and his coaches saw things a bit differently.

After everything Michael has been through as a pro, it is clear that he has only 2 goals left to accomplish. Win the Olympics in the 400, and break the World Record, hopefully in the same race that he does it. His plan going forward is to prepare to do that. When you are as good as Michael Norman is on the track, the World Championships don’t even matter anymore. Because the Olympics is the only thing that can cement his legacy. He ran all of 2023 essentially as a short sprinter. And he showed flashes of his great speed, but was inconsistent when he did it. But the point was not for Michael Norman to win the 100 meter dash at the World Championship. The point was to prepare his body to go faster than anyone ever has for longer than most of us would ever dream of sprinting. With the Olympics now coming in less than a year, the clock is ticking for him to get it done.

The Bottom Line

Michael Norman is the greatest talent we have ever seen attempt to run the 400 meter dash. He was a high school phenom, who conquered the college ranks and then moved on to the pros where his speed set a standard for himself that nobody else can touch. That is because the only man who can has left his best days behind him. But as of right now Michael Norman is not the World Record holder in the 400 meter dash. At least not yet. He basically disappeared in 2023, but that’s only because he is back in the lab, working on something special. As far as any legitimate track fan is concerned, we expect him to pull it off. Because we know that he has the talent to do it, and he is the only man in the world who could. One thing is for certain, we want to see fast times. So if he doesn’t break the World Record, track fans will have very little else to look forward to in the 400 meter dash for quite a while.

LOOK GOOD, FEEL GOOD, RUN GOOD.

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