State College’s Jesse Myers beats out college athletes, makes U20 world track championships

State College’s Jesse Myers is going to need to brush up on his Spanish.

The high school track athlete, who’s heading into his senior year, punched his ticket this past week to the World Athletics U20 Championships in Lima, Peru, from Aug. 27-31. Myers accomplished the feat with a second-place finish and qualifying time — his personal best — in a national meet’s 200-meter dash.

“I went into this obviously wanting to win; I think that’s always the thing to go for, but I also wanted to PR (personal record) at the very least,” Myers said Saturday in a phone interview from Oregon. “But coming out and being able to go to Peru, that feels like a win. It just feels great to go and represent the USA.”

Representing the Nittany Track and Field Youth Club, Myers ran in both the 100- and 200-meter events at the 2024 USATF U20 Championships in Oregon. He didn’t make it past preliminaries in the 100 but easily reached the qualifying time for the world championships in the 200, where he finished with a silver medal Thursday.

In the 200-meter prelims, Myers clocked a personal-best time of 20.86 seconds, which qualified him for the world championships if — and only if — he also finished first or second in the finals. And, in those finals, his time of 21.18 gave him runner-up status in the meet where all participants were younger than 20 years old.

He competed primarily against other high school student-athletes but also beat out at least three college students in the finals — including those from Sam Houston State, Central Arkansas and University of California San Diego.

Myers will be joined in Peru by race winner Jaden Wiley, who represented the Atlanta area and also beat the worlds qualifying time of 21.35 by clocking a 20.82.

“It was definitely a relief,” Myers said about making the world championships. “I think there was a lot of pressure on this trip to make the team. So I’m excited.”

This past week proved to be a memorable one for Myers. On top of competing in the national U20 championships, the State High student-athlete also participated in the Nike Outdoor Nationals in Oregon.

Once again, he didn’t make it out of preliminaries in the 100. But, in the 200, he advanced to the finals, where he placed fifth Saturday afternoon with a time of 21.22. That top-6 finish officially made him an All-American.

Those times were all notably faster than Myers’ performance at the PIAA championships last month. After winning gold as a sophomore, he didn’t finish higher than third as a junior — after a slow start in the 100 and a rough turn in the 200. But his coach told the CDT at the time that he harbored no doubts Myers would easily rebound.

After all, the coach said, Myers knew there were “bigger things ahead.” And Myers said Saturday afternoon his performance this past week reflected improvements he made since then, including staying relaxed and not pushing too hard through the turn in the 200-meter dash.

“That wasn’t what I expected to run, but it was two races,” Myers said, referring to PIAAs. “So, after the meet, you forget about it and work on what you need to do. ... Now, I’m excited for the (world championship) meet. I think I’m ready.”