Talitha Diggs is track and field royalty, and the future of the 400 meter dash
It is incredibly hard to become a champion in track and field, at any level. But the honest truth is that making Team USA in any sprint event is so competitive, that it might as well be a World Championship meet. Talitha Diggs is already a champion at the NCAA championships both indoors and outdoors. In fact, if it weren’t for Britton Wilson, she would be the collegiate record holder indoors right now. That was back in 2022 where she went on to win the American championship in the 400 meter dash as well. In 2023 she made team USA again, which should not be a surprise anymore, but ironically Talitha Diggs was actually supposed to be this good. She is the daughter of a World Championship medalist, and the niece to an Olympian. So the only thing for us to ask about her career, is how much better than either of them might she become?
Talitha is the daughter of a 4 time Olympian
Success in track and field is incredibly hard work. Nobody sees the workouts that take your body to the brink of exhaustion, and they won’t care if you don’t actually win your races. But Talitha Diggs has proven that she is the best at every level she’s competed at. The only place she hasn’t proven it yet is the Olympics. Her mother Joetta was a 4 time Olympian, which is almost unheard of. But in the year 2000 she along with her sister Hazel, and their sister in law Jearl all qualified for team USA, sweeping the 800 meter run. Talitha was literally born to be great, and she made good on that promise since the moment she first stepped foot on the track.
How good is Talitha Diggs really?
At the high school level, she dominated the state of Pennsylvania running one of the nation’s top 10 fastest times in the 400 meter dash as a junior. She also became the state record holder in the 400 and 300 meter dashes on the way to winning 5 state championships. All those performances were good enough to get her recruited by the Florida Gators, which is the same school her Aunt Hazel used to run for!
Once she arrived as a freshman in 2021 she had success immediately. Talitha ran a huge PR in the 400 meter dash to go third indoors in that event. When the outdoor season came a long she only cranked it up a notch going second overall. So entering 2022 we knew she was good, but we should have seen it coming that she would sweep the 400 meter dash out right, both indoors and outdoors. The only thing that we didn’t expect was that in 2023 Britton Wilson would break her collegiate record to beat her indoors, and that she would fade in the outdoor final.
However, in 2022 Talitha Diggs won the 400 meter dash at the USA championships, against all the pros. After all that, she became a World Champion in the 4x400. So in 2023 after her college season she chose to skip her final season of eligibility to run professionally.
The Bottom Line
Talitha Diggs is right now 21 years old and there is literally only one thing that she has left to do to outpace all of her legendary family members. She has to make the Olympic team, and come back home with an individual medal when it is all done. As good as they were, none of them won medals at that competition. But Talitha is coming off of a World Championship finals appearance, in a season one could describe as an underachievement. There is no guarantee that she will do it, but the odds appear to be in her favor.
LOOK GOOD, FEEL GOOD, RUN GOOD.
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