In the 40-year history of the Georgia Olympics, no athlete had ever broken 1 minute, 50 seconds in the 800 meters, before Saturday.
In the finals at Jefferson, two athletes in Class A — Holy Innocents’ senior O’Neal Wanliss and Whitefield Academy junior Cameron Thornton — accomplished the feat.
The two provided the afternoon’s most entertaining race, as they sprinted shoulder-to-shoulder for the final 80 meters of the race. Thornton appeared to have won after he lunged forward across the finish line, collapsing in a heap. But a review of the photo finish showed that Wanliss was the winner in 1:49.618, with Thornton just .005 of a second behind at 1:49.623.
When they were awarded their medals on the awards stand, Wanliss pulled Thornton up to the top step with him.
“We ran the same time,” Wanliss said. “He deserved it.”
Wanliss said he didn’t expect Thornton to be as fast as he was.
“I knew he had great strength and endurance, but I didn’t realize how fast he was until I kept feeling him on my shoulder,” Wanliss said. “I thought to myself, whoa.”
Thornton, crestfallen after the loss, said he couldn’t feel anything in the race’s final moments. “I was just trying to finish,” he said. “I didn’t have anything left.”
This was the second tough loss of Thornton’s young career. Last summer, he came in second in his age group in the national championships by just .22 of a second, in the 800 meters. When asked if he’ll try to use this razor-thin loss as motivation for next season, or just try to forget about it and move on, Thornton, who closed the meet with a blistering final leg on Whitefield’s 1,600-meter relay team that propelled them to a first-place finish, said “I’ll never forget about this. Never.”
Wanliss was selected as the meet’s top athlete. He won the Class A 400 meters as well in a time of 47.77, just one-tenth of a second from breaking that record. His performance in the two races is considered to be the best in the history of the Georgia Olympics.
Other top individual performances were turned in by Mitchell County’s Justin Scott-Wesley in Class A (first in the 100 meters and second in the 200 meters), Elbert County’s Valdon Cooper in Class AA (first in the long jump and the 110-meter hurdles, second in the triple jump), Jonathan Jones of Carrollton in Class AAA (first in the 110-meter and 300-meter intermediate hurdles, fourth in the long jump), Dequadis Tucker of Carver-Atlanta in Class AAAA (first in the 100 and 200 meters) and Torri Tillman of Peachtree Ridge in Class AAAAA (first in the 100 meters and long jump, second in the 200 meters).
Tucker is Georgia’s official “Fastest Man,” after running a 10.60 in the 100 meters, outperforming more well-known sprinters such as Wesley (a UGA football signee), Broderick Snoddy of Carrollton (a Georgia Tech football signee) and Tillman.
“As soon as we got here on Thursday, my coach [Jesse Griffin] told me it’s time to show everybody who the fastest man in Georgia really is,” said Tucker, who next year will play football and run track at North Carolina Central. “That’s what I came here to do. The hard work paid off and I thank God for it.”
