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≡ GRANT HOLLOWAY SPEAKS ≡
At age 27, Grant Holloway has said he has achieved all of his track & field goals. Olympic champion. Three-time World Champion. Three-time World Indoor Champion. Three-time NCAA Indoor and Outdoor hurdles champion.
But he’s not going anywhere and getting ready to start the 2025 Diamond League season in Xiamen (CHN) on Saturday. In an interview posted on the Diamond League site, Holloway underscored the importance of the Diamond League itself:
“The Diamond League plays a huge role, because these meets are quite literally the building blocks to success.
“If you show up to these Diamond League races and you’re running quick times and taking out world-class fields – regardless if they’re Olympic medalists, world medalists, world semi-finalists, finalists – then you’re solidifying yourself. So when the biggest stage does come, you can just think of it as another Diamond League race.”
He also compared the status of the Diamond League to his many other championships:
“It’s nice to have a big old diamond sitting in your house and everybody asking if it’s real!
“Other than the major championship titles, the Diamond Trophy is the next best thing. Rory McIlroy just got his career grand slam in golf, and I always say I have my grand slam in track and field.
“I’m a multiple world champion indoors and outdoors, an Olympic gold medallist and a Diamond League champion. Not a lot of hurdlers are able to say that they have all of those.”
And he commended the quality of the fields he has to run against:
“I’ve been on the circuit six to seven years now and not once have I ever had an easy Diamond League race. I think for all the top hurdlers, male and female, there’s no ducking and dodging.
“We have to be able to do those high intensity reps and not make any mistakes. We have the Americans with me, Daniel [Roberts], Freddie Crittenden, Trey Cunningham and a new kid on the block, Ja’Kobe Tharp, who’s been making a little noise on the NCAA circuit.
“But I’m not going to exclude the Jamaicans either: [Hansle] Parchment is an Olympic champion, [Rasheed] Broadbell won bronze in Paris. That’s seven or eight people who always have a chance to win. So it’s anybody’s race, regardless of what lane you’re in. You’ve got to be able to show up against the best: day in, day out.”
Most fans don’t remember that Holloway won an NCAA Indoor title at 60 m at Florida in 2019, ranking no. 2 in the world that season at 6.50. So why not pull a Fred Kerley and switch to the sprints? Nope, he’s a hurdler, saying of he and his fellow hurdlers:
“I think we are all missing a few brain cells. To be going over those hurdles at full speed, we all have to be a tad bit crazy. My coach always says: ‘hurdlers are sprinters with an attitude.’ You have to have a bit of an attitude to go over 10 barriers as fast as you can and try not to fall on your face.”
Asked about what he values most, more championships – and Diamond League wins – or finally getting the world record, breaking fellow American Aries Merritt’s 12.80 from 2012; Holloway is no. 2 all-time at 12.81 in 2021:
“Definitely a World Championships gold. Later down the line, there’s going to be another Grant Holloway. Who knows what his name is going to be, but he’s going to run faster than 7.27 and 12.79.
“When my time is up and I hang up the spikes, I can look back at all the medals and titles I have won and that is what I’ll be remembered for. Records are there to be broken.”
Holloway is smarting a little after finishing second to Cunningham in the final of the 19 April final of the Tom Jones Memorial in Gainesville, Florida. Cunningham won’t be in Xiamen, but Paris silver winner Roberts, and Olympic finalists Enrique Llopis (ESP), Crittenden and Parchment will be.
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