Is there a new Swedish race in progress?
Isak Hughes’ silver in U18EM is unique in the tournament.
Sweden has won only two medals in the 100m championships on the men’s side – in 84 years.
Both are bronze.
Isak Hughes is a phenomenon who turned 17 recently on Monday.
Now he cut his best in trials, semi-finals and final and finally stopped at 10.37.
No 17-year-old Swede has been faster.
As a junior, only Henrik Larsson has a better time with the Swedish junior record of 10.22, but he set it when he was just 19. Isak has two more chapters to try and beat.
Is it there as big?
I think more than I expected from a Swedish runner who can prove himself internationally and maybe challenge at least at the European Championship level.
Isak Hughes is there at the age of seventeen.
The question is whether he is that as an elder.
Now I’m glad he trained by a wise guy like Håkan Widlund at Växjö, one of the coaches behind Carolina Klüft once upon a time.
Who prefers to speed up slowly and let Isaac rest all indoor season after a back injury.
Like gold in my eyes
No, it was really fun to see a Swede win a medal in the 100m.
It doesn’t happen often, although this European Under-18 Championship has only existed since 2016 and has partially replaced the now defunct youth toilet.
But silver is silver and it is 100 meters high and feels like gold in my eyes.
After Lennart Strandberg took bronze at the European Championships in Paris in 1938, we had to wait for the next championship medal until 2015 when Emil van Barth came home with a bronze medal at the JEM in Eskilstuna in 2015. For 77 years.
I was there at the time and also got to see the Swedes running home with the 4x100m relay gold, with young Thobius Müntler on the team.
But Van Barth hasn’t broken through to the Swedish Grand Prix gold since then, and everyone else attended in the short relay.
It’s a sensitive age, especially in a sprint.
It is very difficult to predict where it will go.
It is held on a global scale
No one has forgotten Irene Eklund who actually broke through and crashed when she was 16 and took gold in the 200m at the 2013 Donetsk Youth Tour.
Then it ranked globally in the age group.
But then came the injuries, setbacks, and the difficulty Irene had yet to overcome.
But now it looks too bright for the Swedish enemy and the men’s side this time around.
For Isaac Hughes, he’s not the only one who shocked the audience.
Located in Skåne, 16-year-old William Trollson has been a sensation this season as he cut his best in the 200m from 23.06 last year to 20.86 in the summer of 2022.
This represents only eleven per cent of the junior record in Sweden by Johan Ingberg.
At 100 meters he moved from 10.99 to 10.47.
Yes you hear.
It seems too good to be true.
History has now taught me not to rush into any overly optimistic expectations for the future, especially when it comes to runners.
But if this development continues, Swedish athletics can have some really fun years before then, even in some of the most exciting running sports.
