Issam Asinga stamped his name as one to watch in the men’s sprints after a dominant double at the just-concluded South American Athletics Championships.
Running in his first international race in Sao Paulo, the high school graduate clocked 9.89 seconds, smashing Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo’s 100m record of 9.91 seconds from last year, making him the fastest 18-year-old ever.
The record-breaking Atlanta native first made headlines for stunning the 200m world champion Noah Lyles at the PURE Athletics Spring Invitational in Clermont, Florida, on 23 April.
Here are top things to know about the promising star, who will lead Suriname’s team at the 2023 World Athletics Championships in Budapest.
Issam Asinga’s impressive records
Asinga is showing all signs of a top sprinting talent.
The teenager was ranked the fastest sprinter in the state of Missouri in 2021 after posting top times in the 100m (10.62), 200m (21.55) and 400m (48.17). His 400m personal best erased a mark that had stood since 1981.
He transferred to Montverde, Florida, with five individual titles in junior high from Missouri.
At the start of the 2023 season, he was a standout performer at the U.S. National Indoors in Boston, tying the 60m high school national indoor record of 6.57 seconds.
He also obliterated the 200m high school national indoor record, clocking 20.48 at the same meet.
“This is my first full year of training,” he offered after setting his second record in two days.
“My focus was just being the best version of myself. It’s a beautiful journey, and it’s just beginning.”
The talented 18-year-old has lost only one 100m race in eight outdoor starts this season and made the podium in each of his 200m runs.
He sped to five sub 10 seconds and became the only U.S. high school sprinter to break 10 seconds three times in any condition.
The Montverde Academy high schooler dashed to wind-assisted marks of 9.86 and 9.83 when he beat some pros at the PURE Athletics Spring Invitational in Clermont, Florida, on 23 April.
A few days later, the only U.S. high school sprinter to break 10 seconds, timed another wind assisted 9.98 at the senior at Florida’s Montverde Academy.
His personal best of 19.97 seconds in the 200m at the same meet lowered Noah Lyles’ 20.09 seconds high school record from 2016.
Last weekend in Sao Paolo, he capped his week with the U20 world record in the 100m.
His 9.89 seconds winning time in the men’s final was also the fastest by a South American since Brazil’s Robson da Silva’s 10.00 mark from 1989.
“I am very pleased with my performance. I knew the result would eventually happen, that it was only a matter of time,” he said shortly after his win that he followed up with a championship record of20.19 seconds to win the 200m.
Catching the attention of Noah Lyles
The world took note of the high school prodigy last April when he defeated the two-time world 200m champion Lyles and other leading sprinters at a meeting in Florida.
Lyles too was impressed by him, tweeting: “I can see us racing on big stages if you keep improving,” which could be in a matter of weeks with the speedstar also likely to double at the Worlds.
“I remember when I broke the HNR (High School National Record) and thought I was doing something but nah this is it. This is freaking incredible!” Lyles added.
The Texas A&M signee’s coach at Montverde Gerard Phiri is ‘elated’ by his star of the future.
“We have worked tirelessly these past few months and I have demanded a lot from him. We knew it was coming, but it’s amazing to see it finally come together with a legal wind,” said Phiri, a retired Zambian Olympic sprinter.
“I am elated for Issam. He is more than deserving of what he has achieved. The job is not done. Budapest has always been the goal. We need to clean up a few things in his transition to max velocity, but we’re in a good place and fully locked in.”