US prodigy who ‘makes young LeBron look like nobody' is latest schoolboy star

Times

4 days ago

Steve Magness knows a lot about sport and science and the limits of both. So when the respected coach and one-time whistleblower in the Alberto Salazar scandal hails a 16-year-old's 800m run as 'the most impressive athletic feat in history' it is worth paying attention.
It seems kids are the present, as well as the future, in track and field. Last week another 16-year-old, Japanese schoolboy Sorato Shimizu, clocked an under-18 world best for the 100m in a scorching 10.06 seconds.
Now an American tyro, Cooper Lutkenhaus, has got in on this extraordinary act. He will also go to the world championships in Tokyo next month, where he will become the USA's youngest-ever competitor on that stage. His time of 1min 42.27sec at the US Track and Field Championships in Oregon was more than a second inside the previous under-18 world best and makes him the 18th-fastest 800m runner of all time. Other nuggets to strain common sense include being the fourth-fastest American in history, faster than British greats such as Steve Cram and Peter Elliott, and averaging 17.5mph during his race at Hayward Field. His time in finishing second to Donavan Brazier would have been enough to win every Olympic 800m gold medal apart from 2024, 2016 and 2012.
Magness is not one given to hyperbole, but he did not hold back in his assessment. 'Cooper Lutkenhaus beat two world champs and finished a tenth behind another [Brazier]. It's mind-blowing. There are no superlatives. His performance makes high-school LeBron [James] look like a nobody.'
Brazier's assessment was also telling. 'I saw someone coming up and I was like, 'Dang, this could be the high-schooler,' ' he said. 'This kid's phenomenal. I'm glad I'm 28 and hopefully won't have to deal with him in his prime because that dude is definitely special.'
The Texas schoolboy is due back in class at Northwest High School near Fort Worth, Texas, next week and state rules prevent him from making any money via NIL (name, image, likeness) deals. The spoils of success will surely come and he already copes comfortably with interviews.
'I obviously wasn't supposed to make the team, a lot of people didn't think I'd make the final, so being able to do that was just a special moment,' he told Track & XC News. Also impressive was the way he held his nerve despite being way off the leading pack halfway through the last lap, only to cover the final 100m in 12.48 remarkable seconds. 'Moving with 200 to 250 to go is the big thing we talked about with my coach. I knew if I went out a little too fast I might not be able to close as well.'
Given that one of those reeled in was his idol, Bryce Hoppel, who set the US record when finishing fourth in last year's Olympic final, Lutkenhaus is arguably the most exciting of all the prodigies who have been lighting up athletics over the past year.
It has been a stunning 2025 for the son of a good, but not great, state runner. In January he set a US high-school sophomore record of 1min 50.15sec. The times have been tumbling ever since and he even overcame a stumble in his heat at Hayward Field to push the barrier to a level loaded with lip-smacking potential.
It will be fascinating to see what happens next. Nurturing young talent through injury, disappointment and expectation, as well as navigating sponsors, the media and fledgling celebrity, means many prodigies have crashed by the wayside.
Already in the US this talented teen is being talked of as better than Jim Ryun, who was voted the fourth-best miler in the world while still in school and was dubbed the best high-school athlete in US history by ESPN, ahead of James and Tiger Woods. Ryun would go on to set the mile world record at 19 and win an Olympic silver at 1,500m in 1968. Magness's take? 'Cooper is far ahead of Ryun and Ryun was the GOAT.'
For now it is a case of back to school and reality, as is the case for Gout Gout, Australia's 17-year-old sprint sensation who is back studying at Ipswich Grammar in Queensland after breaking his own 200m national record on his senior international debut this summer.
Come September and teenage kicks in Tokyo may be hard to beat.