EUGENE, OR – Former Hampton and Howard hurdler Dylan Beard and former North Carolina A&T sprinter Brandon Hicklin are the top qualifiers among current and former HBCU athletes as the U. S. Olympic Track & Field Team Trials get started here Friday. The top three finishers in their respective events will advance to the Paris Olympics (July 26- Aug. 11, 2024)
Beard comes in with the highest ranking. He ran a time of 13.10 seconds in winning the men’s 110 meter hurdles at the Last Chance Qualifying Meet in Powder Springs, Ga. on June 8. It is the fourth-best time entering the Trials trailing only world champion and adidas athlete Grant Holloway (12.96), and Daniel Roberts (13.03) and Cordell Tinch (13.04) who both run for NIKE. Before that best effort, Beard had run five sub 13.4-second times this outdoor season.
Beard has traversed a quite circuitous route to the Trials. The Baltimore native spent three years competing at Wagner before transferring first to Hampton where his 2021-22 season was halted by COVID-19. He then moved to Howard for his senior season of 2022-23 where he ran for and trained under former world champion hurdler David Oliver, the Bison’s head coach.
He does not currently have a pro sponsor and works full time at a deli counter at a WalMart in the Raleigh/Durham N. C. area. His breakthrough came in February at the prestigious indoor 2024 Millrose Games in New York where he beat a world class field that included athletes with major sponsorships for the 60 meter hurdles title. Both Roberts and Tinch were in that field. In April, WalMart surprised him with a $20,000 check that was presented to him during an interview on The Today Show on NBC.
Also in the 110-meter hurdles field along with Beard is former NC A&T hurdler Michael Dickson. He won indoor 60-meter, outdoor 110-meter and outdoor 4×100 relay titles for the Aggies under head coach Duane Ross before turning pro in 2019. He ran his best time of 13.26 seconds in June in a meet in Kingston, Jamaica.
Hicklin enters this week’s 100 meters competition with the fifth best 100 meters time of 9.94 seconds. He ran the time at the LSU Invitational in Baton Rouge (La.) in April and matched the time at a meet this month at the Josef Oklozil Stadium in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Hicklin also does not currently have pro sponsorship.
Hicklin began his career at NC A&T under Ross where he competed primarily in the long jump. He won the 2021 MEAC long jump title and the 2022 Big South long jump title for the Aggies. He transferred to LSU for his senior season (2022-23) and focused on the sprints for the Bengal Tigers. He was a mem- ber of LSU’s NCAA and SEC champion 4×400 meter outdoor relay team in 2023.
SWAC 100- and 200-meter champion, senior Jamarion Stubbs of Alabama State and SWAC high jump champ Arkansas-Pine Bluff senior high jumper Caleb Snowden are both coming off competing at the NCAA Div. I Outdoor Championships in Heyward two weeks ago. Snowden fin- ished third in the high jump while Stubbs was seventh in the 200 meters. Snowden is tied for sixth in the high jump field with a best leap of 2.26 meters (7.0 feet, 4.98 inches) that he cleared in March at the Texas Relays.
Stubbs is in with the seventh best 200 time of 19.95 seconds that he ran in the first round of the NCAA East Regional in Lexington, Ky. in May.
The best qualifier among the women with HBCU roots is Sydni Townsend who ran the 400 meter hurdles for two years at Pittsburgh before moving to Howard and NC A&T and ending her collegiate career at Houston. She qualified two times for the NCAA East Preliminaries at A&T.
Townsend enters the Trials competition with the eight best time of 55.00 flat that she ran while finishing second for Houston at the Big 12 Outdoor Championships last month (May). She finished fifth in 55.01 at the NCAA Championships earlier this month.
Also in the 400 hurdles field along with Townsend are Howard products Jessica Wright and Simone Watkins.
Wright has the 16th best time in the competition (55.78) while Watkins is right behind her at 55.92. Wright completed her career at Howard in the 2023 outdoor season and now runs for the adidas Bailey Track Club. She posted her best time at the Drake Relays in April. Watkins, a Texas Tech transfer, ran her best time for the Bison while winning a first round heat in the NCAA East Regionals in May.
The senior member of the HBCU contingent is former Livingstone (2012-15) and CIAA standout runner and 400 meter specialist Quanera Hayes. Hayes’s time of 50.44 seconds run at the Royal City Track & Field Festival earlier this month at Alumni Stadium in Guelph, Ontario Canada is tenth best entering the competition. Hayes is a former U.S. 400 meter champion from 2017 and the 400 meter champion at the Olympic Trials in 2021. She was also a member of the second-place U. S. 4×400 relay team a the World Indoor Championships in Glasgow, UK this year.
