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In fall 2018, shortly after Kenny Bednarek arrived at Indian Hills Neighborhood Faculty in Ottumwa, Iowa, head monitor coach Brent Ewing talked together with his star freshman sprinter outdoors the load room.
Ewing requested Bednarek: What are your targets?
“He was very adamant,” Ewing remembered in a dialog with the Register on Monday. “He needed to go to the Olympics.”
Now, almost three years later, he’s.
Bednarek earned a spot on Workforce USA Sunday evening on the U.S. Olympic Workforce Trials in Eugene, Oregon, ending second within the males’s 200-meter sprint in 19.78 seconds, which is a personal-best time. Noah Lyles, who gained at 19.74 seconds, and 17-year-old Erriyon Knighton, who took third at 19.84 seconds, additionally certified.
“He is joyful he made the Olympics. However he desires to win. He needed to win final evening,” Ewing stated. “There is a large a part of Kenny that desires to get again on prime and beat Lyles and get a gold medal at Tokyo.”
Bednarek, the primary Iowa junior school athlete to ever qualify for the U.S. Olympics workforce, in line with Iowa monitor professional Mike Jay, took an uncommon path to the Olympics.
He was the No. 2 general sprinter within the 2018 recruiting class popping out of Rice Lake Excessive College in northwest Wisconsin, about two hours from Minneapolis. Principally each monitor energy program within the nation recruited him, and he dedicated to Oregon.
However his highschool grades weren’t the place they wanted to be, and he needed to take the junior school route. He selected Indian Hills.
At Indian Hills, Bednarek rapidly proved why he was so extremely sought-after in highschool. In December 2018, on the Mel Tjeerdsma Traditional in Missouri, Bednarek ran the 400-meter sprint in 45.93. On the time, it was a world-leading indoor mark.
“That is once I was like, ‘OK, this child is admittedly, actually particular,'” Ewing stated.
In March, on the junior school out of doors nationals, he ran 20.43 within the 200 and 45.97 within the 400. Then, in April, on the 2019 Drake Relays, Bednarek gained the boys’s elite 200 in 20.29, which was greater than 3-tenths of a second sooner than the sphere.
One month later, in Might, Bednarek gained the 200 and 400 on the junior school out of doors nationals at 19.82 and 44.73. He turned the second man ever — and first American — to run the 200 and 400 in lower than 20 seconds and 45 seconds on the identical day. It was then that he determined to show professional, and he signed with Nike in July 2019.
Accidents and COVID-19’s impact on the 2020 season have prevented Bednarek’s skilled profession from taking off. However his qualification for the Tokyo Olympics goes a protracted approach to proving he’s an elite sprinter.
“Undoubtedly vindication. I used to be joyful for him,” Ewing stated, “as a result of I do suppose there are some individuals on the market who, possibly prior to those trials, possibly did not take him actual significantly. Or thought, ‘OK, this child has posted quick occasions. However can he actually do it when it issues?'”
Bednarek answered that query Sunday evening.
Matthew Bain is the deputy sports activities editor for the Des Moines Register. He nonetheless covers some recruiting, too. Contact him at mbain@dmreg.com and observe him on Twitter @MatthewBain_.
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