Pennsauken’s Premier Wynn easily advanced to the semifinals of the 400-meter hurdles Wednesday morning at the World Under-20 Championships at Estadio Nacional in Lima, Peru.
Wynn ran 51.89 and finished 2nd to Finland’s Antti Sainio in the 5th of seven heats to automatically advance. The top three finishers in each of seven 1st-round races along with the next three-fastest hurdlers advanced to the semifinals, scheduled for 5:05 p.m. Friday. The final is scheduled for 5:45 p.m. Saturday.
Sainio, seeded 7th at 49.91, won the heat in 51.19, fastest of all 45 competitors. Wynn’s 51.89 was 9th-fastest, although he was safely in 2nd place in his race on the final straight and appeared to back off a bit.
Wynn was slow out of the blocks with a .247 reaction time – 3rd-slowest in the entire field of 53. But by the backstretch he was a clear second to Sainio and ran strong and easy the rest of the way.
Eleven runners broke 52 seconds. The other American in the field, Vance Nilsson, ran 51.98 and won the 4th heat.
The fastest non-qualifier was Dave Davitt, who ran 52.51 and placed 4th in the 3rd race. Davitt is a freshman at Penn.
Wynn came into the meet as the No. 10 seed with his PR of 50.58 from the USATF Under-20 Championships at Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore., in June. He had run 50.72 when he placed 2nd at the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference [MEAC] Championships on his home track at Norfolk State in May.
Wynn and high school teammate Bryce Tucker were the No. 6 and 7 freshmen in NCAA Division 1, Wynn with his 50.58 and Tucker with a 50.61 to win the Big Ten Championships in Ann Arbor, Mich., in May. Among those eligible for World Under-20s – those who don’t turn 20 in 2024 – they were 3rd and 4th, behind Jonathan Frazier of Washington [49.98 at the Pac 12 Championships] and North Carolina State’s Xavier Branker [50.41 at the ACC Championships].
With both going into their sophomore year of college, Wynn and Tucker – both 19 – are the 6th-and 7th-fastest intermediate hurdlers South Jersey has ever produced, and the fastest in 20 years.
48.37 … Reuben McCoy [Winslow Twp.], June 28, 2008, Eugene, Ore.
48.86 … Fred Sharpe [Paulsboro], May 18, 2003, Knoxville, Tenn.
49.50 … Dwight Ruff [Camden], June 12, 2003, Sacramento
50.04 … Mike Brown [Lenape], June 12, 2002, Holmdel, N.J.
50.52 … Martin Booker [Camden], May 12, 1984, Philadelphia
50.58 … Premier Wynn [Pennsauken], June 13, 2024, Eugene, Ore.
50.61 … Bryce Tucker [Pennsauken], May 12, 2024, Ann Arbor, Mich.
The last American to medal in the intermediates at World Under-20’s was Taylor McLaughlin from Union Catholic, who was the silver medalist in 2016 at Zdzisław Krzyszkowiak Stadium in Bydgoszcz, Poland, with a 49.45. His sister is Sydney McLaughlin, the world record holder and two-time Olympic champion in the intermediates.
From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank 