Team USA dominates the men’s 100 meter dash. It is a fact of life that has been true almost every single year for decades. If it weren’t for Usain Bolt, it would have been true practically for the entirety of the 2010s, But lately the Americans have been so good in the 100 meter dash, that the only way to beat them is for them to underachieve. In 2022 they swept the event at the World Championships with nobody else almost within a tenth of a second. But the men who were not a part of that trio were Christian Coleman the reigning Diamond League champion, and Noah Lyles the reigning World Champion.

However, in 2021 at the Olympic 100 meter final Ronnie Baker was on the track. That makes him not just one of the fastest men in America, but one of the fastest men in the world. He actually didn’t lose any races at all in 2021 until the only American who beat him in the Olympics did it first at the Olympic trials. The truth is that Ronnie Baker is a forgotten superstar who has already proven that he can perform at his best when the lights are at their brightest. He was also never supposed to be this fast. In fact, he wasn’t even supposed to run the 100 meter dash at all in college. So with the 2024 Olympics now on the horizon it would be a mistake to count him out to not only make team USA but shock the world if he does.

How good was Ronnie Baker in high school and college?

Ronnie Baker was really not supposed to be this good as a pro. Which is probably why people continue to overlook him. At the high school level he wasn’t even a 100 meter runner primarily. He actually ran the 400 meter dash as his best event making the New Balance National meet as a junior. He did run 10.55 in the 100 meter dash which is really fast for high school, but still not quite good enough to get recruited by the very top programs in D1. So after winning track athlete of the year awards twice for the state of Kentucky he committed to run for Texas Christian University, also known as TCU.

When he got there, nobody really noticed because he started off running what everyone thought was his best event, the 400 meter dash. In his first indoor season he only ran the 60 meter dash one time, exclusively running the 400 otherwise. That continued outdoors while he ran the 100 and 200 a little bit. But he was fast, running new PRs in both events, which was a sign of things to come. As a sophomore that is when things really took off for Ronnie when he made the NCAA championships in the 100 meter dash, accidentally! He didn’t even run it at the Big 12 conference meet, and he still made the NCAAs anyway. He actually had a legitimate shot to make the final but most likely got hurt during his preliminary heat.

During Ronnie’s junior it was clear that he belonged in the short sprints. In 2015, just 1 year later he won the NCAA championship in the 60 meter dash outright! That’s the shortest event on the track, making him the fastest man, when just a season ago TCU team didn’t take him seriously in the event. He underachieved outdoors but still ran 10.05 wind legal in the 100 meter dash, only to come back in 2016 and repeat as the NCAA champion in the 60 meter dash! This time he ran only 2 hundredths of a second off of the collegiate record. He eventually finished 9th overall in the NCAA 100 meter dash, but the point was already made, that Ronnie Baker is legit!

Ronnie Baker’s rise to become an Olympian

The thing about Ronnie Baker is that he isn’t flashy at all, he simply lines up and runs really fast. There are many personalities in the 100 meter dash for team USA. Fans have gotten used to seeing those men in the front of the race, which is why Ronnie often gets lost in the shuffle. He signed to run professionally after college and has only gotten better from there, and the clock is proof of it. He became the American indoor champion in the 60 meter dash in 2017. The only reason he didn’t repeat in 2018 is because Christian Coleman broke the world record in the same race that he got second. He then went second overall at the USA championships in the 100 meter dash for 2018 in 9.90 seconds. 2020 was supposed to be his year, because he went undefeated in the 60 meter dash before everything shut down. So in 2021 he picked up where he left off.

At the Olympic Trials Ronnie Baker went 9.85 to finish second overall. He proved it wasn’t a fluke by going 9.83 in the semifinals of the Olympic games themselves. He finished fifth in the final which is extremely hard to do and for some reason doesn’t get the credit he deserves. Since that time the only thing that has been able to slow him down is himself. He underachieved on the clock but most of that appears be due to injury more than anything else. Which doesn’t really matter, because now we know the truth. Ronnie Baker is a gamer. He has already proven it at the NCAA championships in college, at the USAs and Olympic Trials, and even in the Olympics themselves.

It is unclear what Ronnie Baker’s career will look like going forward. He was never supposed to run the 100 meter dash, and proved even his college coaches wrong for not putting him in it at the conference level. He was never supposed to be a champion in college or beyond and proved that he could against all odds. And even when his best season ever got cut short in 2020, he came back the following year to make the Olympic final and make his presence felt when he was there. The 100 meter dash is so competitive right now that the reigning World and American Champions will have a really tough time making the games. But Ronnie Baker has already been there, and he has proven that if you let him get a taste of victory once, he has a strong habit of figuring out how to do it again.

LOOK GOOD, FEEL GOOD, RUN GOOD.

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