Jordan Anthony: Fastest in the World

By Editor | March 24, 2026 |

By Cathy Chance Harvey
In his 1952 address to the Delta Council, Nobel Prize winning Mississippi author William Faulkner said, “Don’t bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.” Professional sprinter Jordan Anthony, 2022 Tylertown High School graduate and winner of the 2025 Bowerman Award, is someone who has surely met this challenge.
On February 13, 2026, Jordan Anthony won the 60m Tyson International, in Fayette, AR, with a personal best time of 6.43 seconds. On March 1, he was the winner of the 60m USA Track and Field Indoor Championship, in Staten Island, NY, at 6.45 seconds, his first national title as pro. Just six weeks later, on March 20, Jordan made his international debut competing in the 60m World Athletics Indoor Championships in Torun, Poland. He won the gold medal with a blistering time of 6.41 seconds. That’s fast. That’s Sippi Fast.
In this latest race, Jordan proved to be better than his competitors, faster than Olympic 100m silver medalist Kishane Thompson, 2016 champion Trayvon Bromell and reigning champion Jeremiah Azu. Beyond beating the competition, Jordan achieved the ultimate: he was better than himself, creating a new personal time that is the fastest in the world this year and the fourth-fastest in history.
When Jordan was visiting in Tylertown shortly after his February race, I spoke to him for a few minutes about his goal to compete in the 2028 summer Olympics. I asked him, “How do you train for the Olympics?” He answered without hesitation, “Repetition.” “You only got one hit, only one chance, and you got to be ready.” Clearly, Jordan was ready for the World Championships. Even the blood clot in his arm that had developed on the eve of the race from a drug test gone wrong did not slow him down.
As Jonathan Gault has reported on the letsrun.com site, Jordan recalled that before he left home for Poland, training partner Noah Lyles had told him, “Be used to the unexpected.” Lyles was involved in a golf cart collision on his way into the stadium at the 2023 Worlds. For Jordan, the unexpected happened on Wednesday afternoon before the Friday race. A doping control officer missed a vein while attempting to draw blood. Jordan said the clot that formed in his left arm was the size of a “soccer ball,” and he was left with a limited range of motion. The medics applied a spider web of black kinesiotape that ran down the length of his arm. It was still sore throughout the competition, but nothing was going to stop him from winning gold for Team USA. As Jordan put it, “The devil’s always out there trying to stop you from doing a good deed. It could have damn near fell off and I would still be running.” In his typically good-humored fashion, Jordan described the tape on his arm: “Pretty stylish!”

Later in his article on Jordan’s win, Gault mentions the “air of humility” that Jordan carried into the meet. He viewed himself as an underdog, a “child” compared to older runners like Thompson and Bromell. A video interview, published on FloTrack.com, also reveals the humility so characteristic of Jordan and his tendency to deflect attention away from himself to his fans. “This is my first global championship,” Jordan says with a broad smile, “my first time out of the country as well. I’m more excited to see the fans, more than running.” He expresses his surprise that “different races” of fans know who he is. “I’m more excited to show them a good time.”
Asked if he considers himself the “favorite,” he replies, “I don’t feel like I’m the favorite. I leave that up to them. I’m the underdog.” A former football player for the University of Arkansas, Jordan continued, “I’m a rookie to their sport, to the field as well.” Jordan nevertheless does not shrink from the rigors of competition and maintains faith in his God-given ability: “I come out here and take everybody the food because, like, it’s a dog eat dog world. I pray I be the biggest dog.”
Jordan Anthony, “the biggest dog,” is the 9th U.S. man to ever win the men’s 60m title at the Worlds Indoor Championships. This win is especially important to him, according to an interview published by AW (Athletics Weekly), because he feels the glory is to God and to those loved ones who have passed. Remembered in tattoos on his body, they helped him spiritually in the race: “My aunt passed a year ago and my cousin passed four years ago. So I put those tattoos on my back. As I’m winning physically, they’re winning spiritually, all the other competitors see is my back.”
You may notice in the post-race photos of a victorious Jordan that he wears a silver chain with a pendant in the shape of a “6,” the number of his Tylertown football jersey. As Dr. Bradley Brumfield, Superintendent of Walthall County School District has remarked, Jordan’s athletic achievements are impressive, but people here are most proud of his character, his humility, the way “he takes Tylertown with him everywhere he goes.”
Thank you, Jordan Anthony, for so well representing on the world stage the Town of Tylertown, Walthall County, and the State of Mississippi!