Sam Blaskowski won the Music City Track Carnival 100 metre dash race in Nashville, Tennessee, in a new personal best of 9.89 seconds on Saturday.
Two things are notable about the result. The performance makes him the fastest person in history who is white. And the new personal best is big. He dropped his PB by .016 of a second from 10.05s to 9.89s.
Blaskowski ran in lane four. The field appeared to get out of the blocks evenly across all eight lanes. During the initial phase of the sprint, it was Blaskowski and Cameron Crump in lane five who began to pull away. After 60m, Blaskowski slowed the least amount of his competitors and crossed the line with a sizeable lead, as Crump clocked 9.99 seconds for second. Brandon Hicklin took third in 10.05. The top four finishers were American.
The diminutive, 23-year-old runner from Wisconsin was clearly elated with his performance. The 9.89-second run would have earned him a bronze medal or a fourth-place finish during the 2025 Tokyo World Athletics Championships, tied with American Noah Lyles.
Blaskowski’s personal best coming into the meet was 10.05 seconds from May 2025, where he raced at the Veterans Memorial Stadium, La Crosse, WI.
Results
| Place | Name | Country | Time | Previous SB | Improvement |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sam Blaskowski | USA | 9.89 | 10.09 | 0.20 |
| 2 | Cameron Crump | USA | 9.99 | 10.11 | 0.12 |
| 3 | Brandon Hicklin | USA | 10.05 | 10.06 | 0.01 |
| 4 | Zach Beard | USA | 10.09 | 10.27 | 0.18 |
| 5 | Brendon Stewart | USA | 10.11 | 10.20 | 0.09 |
| 6 | Alaba Akintola | Nigeria | 10.11 | 10.33 | 0.22 |
| 7 | Melbin Marcelino | Dominican Republic | 10.13 | 10.26 | 0.13 |
| 8 | Andre Edwards | Jamaica | 10.14 | 10.13 | -0.01 |
Fastest white sprinters
Until Saturday, the fastest white sprinters of all time are listed below. The only two to go under 10 seconds were Christoph Lemaitre of France at 9.92 seconds and Filippo Tortu at 9.99 seconds from runs in 2011 and 2018, respectively.
| Athlete | Country | PB (100m) | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Christophe Lemaitre | France | 9.92 | 2011 |
| Filippo Tortu | Italy | 9.99 | 2018 |
| Rytis Sakalauskas | Lithuania | 10.02 | 2011 |
| Ján Volko | Slovakia | 10.07 | 2018 |
| Ramil Guliyev | Turkey | 10.08 | 2015 |
| Serhiy Smelyk | Ukraine | 10.10 | 2014 |
| Morten Schumann | Denmark | 10.14 | 2021 |
Blaskowski is training under Dennis Mitchell in his Star Athletics group in Montverde, Florida. Blaskowski, a former Division III athlete, leaped past the 9.90s entirely.
Unfortunately, Mitchell’s doping history follows him around.
In 1998, he was banned by the International Association of Athletics Federations (World Athletics) for two years after a test showed high levels of testosterone. The organization did not accept his defence of “five bottles of beer and sex with his wife at least four times… it was her birthday, the lady deserved a treat.”
Mitchell testified that coach Trevor Graham injected him with human growth hormone.
Mitchell also coaches Sha’Carri Richardson. He also coaches several other top-performing athletes, including Kenny Bednarek, Meliss Jefferson-Wooden, Aaron Brown and Twanisha “Tee Tee” Terry. He formerly coached the known drug cheat, Justin Gatlin.
Blaskowski is not guilty by association, but his improvement from 10.05 to 9.89 seconds in the same season, while in his first season with Mitchell, is a formidable performance change. Blaskowski is the fastest American in 2026 and currently holds the world lead.
