‘The moment is now’: Michael Norman goes to 100m after winning 400m world title

Through Michael Norman‘s career as a 400m sprinter, from his pre-pandemic USC seasons through winning the world title last year, he stored what three acclaimed college coaches said while he was in high school.

Out of a multitude of suitors, Quincy Watts and Caryl Smith Gilbert of USC and then nine-time Olympic champion Carl Lewis of Houston separately shared the same verdict with Norman.

“We’re recruiting you for the 400m,” Norman recalled Thursday, “but looking at the way you run and your natural ability, we think you’re a 100m runner.”

He is ready to put that to the test.

Norman, 25, is shifting his focus from the 400m to the 100m and plans to race the shorter event at July’s USA Track and Field Outdoor Championships in Eugene, Oregon, where three spots are at stake for August’s world championships in Budapest.

“We’ve always had this idea that once I develop and accomplish the goals that I want to do in the 400m, that the goal will be to drop down to the 100m,” he said. “I can comfortably say that I’ve achieved what I wanted to achieve in the 400m and I can start challenging myself and trying something new in attempting to medal and break records in the 100m.”

If all goes well, Norman could race the 100m at the Paris Olympics.

“The plan for 2023 is more of a setup for 2024,” he said. “Everything I’m doing now is setting good habits in preparation for the Olympics. So when it comes to Olympic year, I can just keep building.”

Norman has been a 100m prospect for years. Before the pandemic, he said that he had a deal with his then-coach Smith Gilbert (who has since moved to Georgia) that he could switch to the 100m if he won Tokyo Olympic gold.

In 2020, Norman had the freedom to run the 100m due to the Olympic