Nyck Harbor punches ticket to nationals, earns automatic qualifier for US Olympic Trials
Nyck Harbor is headed to Oregon. No, not as a Duck but as a Gamecock after punching his ticket to run at nationals in Eugene next month.
On Friday night at the NCAA East Regionals, Harbor ran a personal best in the 200-meter with a time of 20.20. Finishing in eighth place, his time not only sends him to nationals but it’s also a new South Carolina record. Harbor also ran a new personal best in the 100-meter with a time of 10.11. He finished in tenth, which also qualifies him for nationals in that event as well.
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Harbor’s performance in the 200m earns him an automatic qualifier for the 2024 US Olympic Trials. According to USA Track & Field, the automatic-qualifying time for the 200m is 20.30. For the 100m, the automatic-qualifying time is 10.05. Heading into Friday, Harbor’s personal best for the 200m was 20.47, which he ran this past Wednesday. His previous best in the 100m was 10.12, which he set last month at the USC Open. That was, until tonight, the third fastest 100m in South Carolina program history.
Throughout this entire process, South Carolina football coach Shane Beamer has been extremely supportive of Harbor.
“It would be really, really cool for our university, for our football program, for our track program, but most importantly, for Nyck,” Beamer said during a recent Welcome Home tour event on the possibility of Harbor competing in the Olympic Games. “I know how passionate he is about track. He’s a great young man (and) so humble as well, so I’m hoping it happens.”
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The US Olympic Trials are set to take place between June 21-30 in Eugene, OR. While Harbor would need to earn a spot for the 2024 Olympic Games, as we’ve mentioned before in the past, South Carolina football is tentatively scheduled to report for fall camp on August 1. Practice No.1 is set to begin on August 2. The 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris is set to begin on July 26 and run through August 11.
“It wouldn’t be great from a football standpoint because of the amount of time that he would miss with football. But he and I have talked about it,” added Beamer. “We met in my office at the end of spring practice, and I told him that, ‘If you could get a chance to run in the Olympics, that is so cool and something that would be really, really awesome for him and our entire university.”
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The dual-sport athlete caught 12 passes for 195 yards and a touchdown as a true freshman for Beamer’s football program in 2023. He was the highest-ranked prospect for the Gamecocks’ 2023 recruiting class and returns as one of South Carolina’s most product wide receivers. The On3 Industry Ranking – a weighted average of all four major recruiting services – rated Harbor as the 21st-best football prospect in the country and as the nation’s number-one athlete.
