By David Melly
April 22, 2026
2026 is already shaping up to be a year where the young guns take center stage. At this (admittedly early) point in the season, the average age of the world leader across 20 track events is just 22 years old.
The five fastest men in the 100m so far this season were all born in 2003 or 2004. In the women’s 100m, youth is an even larger factor—world leader Adaejah Hodge just turned 20 and three of the five fastest runners this year are 21 or younger.
It’s understandable that track and field’s thirty-somethings may be looking at the meet calendar, their driver’s licences, and the nascent LA28 website and coming to the conclusion that load management is the name. Many of track’s longevity-enjoying stars—like Katie Moon and the now-retired Nick Willis—have talked about how including down periods in training is the key to extended careers. The older you get, the smarter you have to be about allocating effort, both in training and in racing. So it’s understandable that anyone thinking they might want to give it one last go 2028 is working backward and thinking that it may not be worth it to leave it all on the track in 2026.
That opens the door for the new guard to take up all the attention, whether it’s Hodge running rampant over NCAA competition or Jordan Anthony claiming World Indoor gold. These youngsters are fresh, they’re hungry, and they have plenty to prove. It’s easy to start looking at someone like 28-year-old Michael Norman as a Rocky Balboa-type old-timer when the competition is 22-year-old Collen Kebinatshipi.
Last weekend featured one glaring exception to the trend, however. In the second heat of the 100m at a relatively low-key meet in Kingston, 33-year-old Elaine Thompson-Herah won her first 100-meter race in over two years in 10.92 looking relaxed and controlled with a minimal tailwind. After contesting a couple 60-meter rust busters and notching a 200m victory earlier in the spring, this was ETH’s first performance that elicited more than a little fanfare—and it’s understandable why.
Normally, an athlete running nearly half a second off their 100-meter PB wouldn’t be much to write home about, but that’s a pretty misleading stat. Most importantly, this was the five-time Olympic champion’s first sub-11 and fastest time since 2023. And her 10.54 isn’t just any personal best; it’s the second-fastest mark in history. ETH did, however, use Velocity Fest #19 to lay down a perfectly solid 100m opener in mid-April after missing an entire calendar year of racing.
Before injuries kept her out of competition all of 2025, they derailed her attempt to defend her 2020 Olympic titles in 2024. We never got the chase to see how her adjusted training setup had been working out—she changed coaches several times in 2023. But Thompson-Herah wasn’t alone in experiencing setbacks during that stretch. Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Shericka Jackson were also battling injuries of one kind or another in 2024, and the Paris Olympics was a disappointing one for Jamaican sprinters. Four of the nation’s six medals came from field events—none came from the women’s sprints.
2025 was a much happier story, with Jamaica taking 1-2 in the men’s 100m and the handing of the baton (both literally and metaphorically) from Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce to the Clayton twins, Tia and Tina. But ETH was nowhere to be seen all season and it would’ve been understandable to assume she was quietly riding off into the sunset.
This weekend’s 10.92 puts any suggestions of retirement planning or allegations of washed-upness to rest. In 2023, Thompson-Herah’s last full season, she didn’t break 11 seconds in the 100m until September 4th. In 2021, the year she completed the double-double Olympic gold, her season opener was 11.21.
The historic Elaine season that 2026 most resembles so far is 2022, where Thompson-Herah opened up with a handful of 60ms and a 56-second 400m before running 10.89 on April 16th. While it wasn’t quite the dominant campaign of the year prior, Thompson-Herah still earned two medals at Worlds, took double gold at the Commonwealth Games, and finished the year with season’s bests of 10.79 and 21.97. If she can put up a similar championship season run, four years and a series of health battles later, that would be an incredible feat.
This time last year, it would seem nearly impossible that “Fast Elaine” could realistically contend for a third Olympic berth at 36. And with the likes of the Claytons, Shenese Walker, and upstart 18-year-old Shanoya Douglas coming into their primes, there will be no easy path. But just like the tenth-century English peasant of Monty Python lore, she’s not dead yet. Count her out at your own peril!
An intergenerational battle between promising rookies and gritty veterans is a classic sports trope in both fiction and real life for a reason; it gives fans hope for both a future to come and a comeback to celebrate. Thompson-Herah has the whole season ahead of her to reset the narrative for the better, and after a long two years, it seems like her luck has finally begun to turn.
David Melly
Since David began contributing to CITIUS in 2018, he's done a little bit of everything, from podcast hosting to newsletter writing to race commentary. Currently, he coordinates the social media team and manages both the CITIUS MAG newsletter and The Lap Count, supplying hot takes and thoughtful analysis in both short- and long-form. Based on Boston, David breaks up his excessive screen time by training for marathons, crewing trail races, baking sweet desserts, and mixing strong cocktails.
