SDS Alum to Compete in Olympics

Congratulations to St. Dominic School alum Harrison Williams who will represent the United States at the 2024 Olympics in Paris. Harrison, a member of the St. Dominic Class of 2010, gained his Olympic spot with a third-place finish in the decathlon at the U.S. Track and Field trials in Eugene, Oregon, on June 22. We look forward to watching him compete!  

Read more about Harrison and his journey to the Olympics in this article published by the Daily Memphian.

Harrison Williams makes US Olympic decathlon team

by David Boyd

Harrison Williams is going to Paris.

Williams, the former standout track and field athlete from Memphis University School, gained his Olympic spot with a third-place finish in the decathlon at the U.S. Track and Field trials in Eugene, Oregon, that ended Saturday night.

Zach Ziemek and Heath Baldwin also qualified to represent the United States in the decathlon at the 2024 Paris Olympics (July 26-Aug. 11). Baldwin scored 8,625 points to win the Trials, with Ziemek taking second with 8,516. Williams scored 8,384.

Williams, a Stanford graduate and former NCAA decathlon champion, did it the hard way.

After four of the ten events, Williams was 351 points out of first place and in seventh place overall. He then ran 46.56 seconds in the 400-meter race, the final event Friday night. His time was the fastest in the decathlon field of 18 competitors and closed his gap to the leader to 230 points, but Williams remained in seventh place. 

In the first event of the second day of the grueling decathlon, Williams ran a 13.94 in the 110-meter hurdles. The points he scored moved him into fifth place. He followed that with a solid discus throw of 147 feet and 8 inches and then cleared 16-6¾ in the pole vault to finally break into the top three.

A personal best throw of 194 feet, 10 inches in the javelin (the 9th event) and a 4:36.6 in the 1,500 (the 10th and final event) kept him in the top three.

Williams, 28, won the 2023 title at the USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships and finished seventh in the World Championships.

Williams’ 2023 success followed a frustrating stretch of injuries, including not competing in 2022.

“Taking a year off was kind of a blessing in disguise,” Williams, a 2014 graduate of MUS, told The Daily Memphian last year. “I could kind of take a step back and figure out who I was outside the track. I think that was something I was missing coming out of college (he graduated from Stanford in 2019) because I focused so much on track for so long.”