Cordell Tinch is the world champion in the 110m hurdles, completing a fairytale story after he sold phones, installed cable and operated machinery that made toilet paper during a three-year break from track.
Tinch, who missed the 2024 Olympic team by one spot, won Tuesday’s final in 12.99 seconds.
Jamaicans Orlando Bennett and Tyler Mason took silver and bronze at the World Championships in Tokyo.
“I don’t think that I make it to where I am now if I don’t ever take that break to find myself,” Tinch said before worlds. “Finding myself was the biggest part of all of that. Just because at the time, I don’t think I was a very happy person.”
TRACK AND FIELD WORLDS: Results | Broadcast Schedule
Tinch, after stints at the University of Minnesota and the University of Kansas, tweeted at the onset of the pandemic in March 2020, “Lost part of me a year ago, still searching to put it back in place.”
He left school, went home to Wisconsin and worked several jobs. Urged by a friend and his mom (who wanted him to get a degree), he returned to track in 2023 at Pittsburg State, a Division II school in Kansas.
From out of nowhere, he ran the world’s third-best time that year. At the end of a long season, exhaustion compounded by not training at all the previous fall, he was eliminated in the semifinals of the 2023 Worlds.
Still, his early success that year allowed him to turn pro after one season at Pittsburg State.
“I was really just hoping to get my school paid for, and six months after I came back, I was getting my life paid for,” Tinch said.
In 2024, he dealt with a hamstring injury and placed fourth at the Olympic Trials in 13.03 seconds, a time that would have won silver at the Paris Games.
Cruelly, his first meet after missing the Olympic team was actually in Paris, where people asked if he had come over for the Games that were starting in three weeks’ time. Tinch chose not to watch the Olympics on TV.
This year, Tinch ran a personal best of 12.87 on May 3, a time that held up as the world’s fastest for 2025 going into worlds. That made the feeling of crossing the finish line in Tokyo one of relief.
“I ran fast in May,” Tinch told Lewis Johnson on NBC Sports. “If I didn’t run fast in September, I ran fast for nothing.”
After celebrating Tuesday, he planned to call his mom.
“That’s when it’ll really set in,” he said, “because she’s probably going to cry more than me.”
Tinch felt relief following 110mH title at worlds
Cordell Tinch tells Lewis Johnson what his first global championship felt like and what keeping the men’s 110m world title on U.S. soil means to him.
Grant Holloway, the 2024 Olympic gold medalist and three-time defending world champion, was eliminated in the semifinals.
Holloway, who said he has practiced well but hasn’t translated it into races, was seeded ninth going into worlds by best times of 2025.
“This has been my worst season by far on paper,” Holloway said. “Just never really got clicking throughout this whole year. Nothing sucks more than training really hard and still getting the same results.”
Faith Kipyegon adds 4th world 1500m title to Olympic golds
In the 1500m, Faith Kipyegon became the first woman to win four world titles in any distance-running event, adding to her three Olympic gold medals in the event.
Kipyegon, a 31-year-old Kenyan, led from start to finish and prevailed by the largest margin of her seven global titles in the event.
Kipyegon is on a four-year win streak in the 1500m and has broken the world record in each of the last three years.
More on Kipyegon’s latest victory here.
Kipyegon kicks to fourth world title in 1500m
Kenya’s Faith Kipyegon pulled away from eventual silver and bronze medalists Dorcus Ewoi of Kenya and Australia’s Jessica Hull, winning the women’s 1500m in 3:52.15 at the 2025 World Track and Field Championships.
Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone shatters American record
In the 400m semifinals, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone shattered the American record by clocking 48.29, the 11th-fastest time in history.
“Wasn’t expecting that,” she said. “Clearly shows me that my fitness is there.”
McLaughlin-Levrone, whose previous best was 48.74, took down the American record of 48.70 recorded by Sanya Richards-Ross on this day in 2006.
In Thursday’s final, McLaughlin-Levrone faces a field including Marileidy Paulino of the Dominican Republic, who won the 2024 Olympic title in 48.17. That’s the only time run by anybody in the last five years that is faster than McLaughlin-Levrone’s 48.29.
McLaughlin-Levrone, the two-time Olympic gold medalist and six-time world record breaker in the 400m hurdles, switched to the flat 400m this season in a bid to become the first person to win world titles in each one-lap event.
Mclaughlin-Levrone smashes Richards-Ross’ 400m AR
Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone ran a world lead 48.29 seconds to set the top mark in the 400m semifinals, qualified for the final in Tokyo, and smashed Sanya Richards-Ross’ American record that stood for nearly two decades.
Canadian Ethan Katzberg won a third consecutive global title in the hammer throw. His winning heave of 84.70 meters marked the world’s best since 2005.
New Zealand won a world title on back-to-back days. Hamish Kerr followed his 2024 Olympic gold with his first world outdoor title in the high jump, a day after Geordie Beamish took the 3000m steeplechase.
In the 800m, 2019 World champion Donavan Brazier — who spent years in injury wilderness — led the qualifiers into Thursday’s semifinals.
Cooper Lutkenhaus, at 16 the youngest American to ever compete in any World Track and Field Championships event, was eliminated with a seventh-place finish in his first-round heat.
The World Championships continue Wednesday with finals including the women’s pole vault (7:10 a.m. ET) and men’s 1500m (9:20 a.m. ET). Coverage begins at 6 a.m. ET on USA Network and Peacock.
Cordell Tinch went from selling cell phones to becoming the world’s fastest man in the 110m hurdles.
