Pretty amazing sprint. Sets a new Hokies record. Qualified him for Nationals in the 100m. Hopefully Pry can get him the ball in open space in the fall.
ππππ¦: 9οΈβ£.8οΈβ£7οΈβ£ @ColetonBeck #Hokies βοΈ pic.twitter.com/TaaIyFr2YYβ Virginia Tech Track & Field (@HokiesTFXC) May 26, 2023
Race from yesterday. 9.87w pic.twitter.com/PDZxyT3MErβ Cole Beck (@ColetonBeck) May 27, 2023
Forums:
DISCLAIMER: Forum topics may not have been written or edited by The Key Play staff.

Comments
damn that's fast. never seen him sprint before but looked like he didn't have a smooth start either.
thanks for posting
Didn't seem to hurt him a whole lot, but that definitely wasn't the prettiest first several strides.
it may not be smoothest, but it looks like he was the fastest out of the gates for at least the first few strides. About the 5th stride is when he gets passed by the eventual winner.
Looks like his right foot on the step after coming out of the blocks get hung on something like the spikes on his right shoe scrapes the track just enough to cause a glitch but after that he was getting after it
saw somewhere that it's the fastest time by a white guy in history, which is pretty insane. I guess we're a caucasian running school now?
Anybody know if Christian McCaffrey ever ran a timed 100m? On the flip side of that does Beck have a timed 40-yard at VT Yet?
Only thing I'm finding is 4.29 in high school.
I'm not 100% certain, but most likely Christian McCaffrey would be solidly outclassed by Beck on a track.
For some perspective on how fast Beck is, Tyreek Hill ran track at Oklahoma state and his personal best 100m in college seems to have been 10.19s non-wind aided, and 9.98s with a 5.0m/s tailwind. So, similar but a little slower than Beck.
DK Metcalf ran against some professional sprinters a couple of years ago and ran a very respectable 10.32s in the 100. But well behind what Beck is capable of.
Holy shit. Do we know if it was wind aided?
Regardless, Cole is one of the best VT athletes of all time
It was with a heavy tail wind.
Even then, I think it was still the fastest time by a white man in any conditions. So still incredibly impressive.
It was wind-aided, and all the times were super fast. However, he did have the 2nd fastest overall time out of 24 runners in all the final set of heats - since this was a qualifier for the NCAA National meet, there was no true Final heat, just 3 "quarterfinals" with the top 12 advancing to nationals.
The day before he did run a school record 10.05 that was NOT wind-aided. That was good enough to make him tied for the 24th fastest human on the planet at the time. Now he's dropped down to a tie for 30th in the world.
Top men's 100m times in 2023
It's worth noting that most of the Americans ahead of him on the list are Olympians (Noah Lyles, Fred Kerly, Christian Coleman, Ronnie Baker, etc.).
It's amazing that wind aided can make that big a difference
0.07 seconds is pretty fast, it's a blink of an eye.
30 mph is ~13 m/s, so a 30 mph win would go 134m in those 10 seconds.
This calculator works out to be around a 10.10 without wind, putting in the 9.87 with 5.5m/s tailwind. Just fyi.
https://www.brianmac.co.uk/sprints/altwind.htm
So right around his usual times. Still incredibly fast and one of the top sprinters in the world right now
Can you imagine if he makes the US Olympic Team for next summer? That would be amazing
I can see him running a leg of the prelim 4x100 but not the final. But that still would get him a medal if the team were successful.
He might be a bit off the pace for the Olympics, but probably likely for Worlds and Nationals. Track peeps correct me if I'm wrong.
Happy for the kid but I think we need to slow our roll until he can replicate this without a wind aided race. Don't get me wrong he's had a hell of a season but until he wins some big time races I would reel in expectations.
Looks like the US Olympic qualifying standard is 10.05, with NO wind aided time being accepted. (Right now, his 10.05 I believe gets him an invite...)
The standard to make it to Paris is 10.00.
I'm not sue what it would mean if the USA 100m final had nobody break 10.00, but some of those guys have already run that this season, so I think they would qualify.
Follow up, after thinking on it, I think someone who ran say 10.03 prior to the US trials would be invited. (Or say 10.05 like Beck.) But if they somehow where to not break 10.00 and finish top 3 in the US trials, they prob wouldn't be eligible for Paris unless they need to fill out the filed by special invite.
It's 10.05 to get to the trials, but 10.00 to get to Paris. Take Kerley for ex, if he were to false start and not finish in the top 3 in the US trials finals, he still would be eligible for Paris since he's posted a 9.94 this year within the window.
For Track and Field, the World Championships are basically the same as the Olympics, just in off-years.
With his recent 100m times, Beck is at least knocking on the door of being Olympic level. Unfortunately, his real problem is he lives in the wrong country to qualify for either the Olympics or World Championships. The USA dominates in the sprints these days, and it's REALLY competitive to make a US Olympics or Worlds team in the 100m. In 2022, it took 9.86 seconds to be top 3 and make the team.
But if he's able to consistently run at this level (10.00 - 10.10, or even go under 10 seconds), he's going to make some money as a pro.
Yeah I understand basic track times, but not the format for qualifying for different championships. I was basing it off swimming where it's much easier (though still hard) to make Worlds. What's the one they do at Oregon that isn't trials?
Prefontaine Classic.
Kinda amazes me that an athlete of that caliber WITH a football background has yet to be utilized on the gridiron, despite years of being in the program. But then again, considering the amount of player development that has been going on here recently, maybe I shouldn't be all that surprised...
Dude looks like a football player, too. Let's get him the damn ball!
Being fast is certainly a desired skill set for a football player, but it's far from being the only skill set.
He never looked like a natural football player to me in any footage I ever saw - if I didn't know he was a world class sprinter, I would have never guessed it.
Just for reference, Fred Kerley ran 9.94 to win the diamond league 100m this past weekend.
Yep, and that's reigning World Champion Fred Kerley.
This is amazing! Love this for Mr. Beck...
Additionally, and this has been discussed by some of the experts who make contributions on this website... He's fast, but he isn't a football player. His lack of playing time has very little to do with "lack of development".
And that's not a knock on Cole, he's a great Hokie! We've had great football players who weren't particularly fast (here's looking at you Ryan Williams and even more so, Cody Grimm). Everyone has a gift, and he is clearly using his for the right thing.
Cody Grimm was pretty fast in college. He ran down many a player from the Whip spot.
right, but he had a horrible 40 time which goes to show you there's a whole lot more to being successful on the football field than straight line speed.
Lots of respect for Cole. My oldest son (9) had been getting into running and so we went to a track last year to race. I had a time of around 16 seconds, which I thought was okay for early 40s. I beat my son when we raced, but that won't be for much longer. Hard to imagine being 6-7 seconds faster.
My son and I did a second 100m race, which I think he won. All I remember is that I nearly threw up afterwards. Would have been smarter to do some actual training beforehand.
Ran track in high school- mainly JV -and my best 100m time was 12.5; now at age 58, I feel I'd be lucky to do it in double or triple that time lol!
(TBH I was prob better at slightly longer distance; for the 400 I didn't train specifically for it (as I was actually mainly triple jumper) but ran a 56 flat.(Coach told me I could probably have gotten to 52 or so if I worked mainly on that-but given that top district guys were running in the 49 range....I didn't bother lol!)
You nearly threw up because you were running.
Had all you done was WalkTheLine you probably would have been alright! /s
Beck is from Blacksburg so he's got my full support and admiration
Name checks out
Awesome vid to watch. He's flying.
And to think people said that Fuente couldn't recruit!
/s
maybe that's a bad picture of him but he has a lot of upper body muscle and some skinny legs.
I think that was called GRIT or something. I forget.
I distinctly remember opposing coaches saying our football team had skinny leg syndrome during the Fuente/Hilgart era-needless to say...not good for football
However I remember Yohan Blake (sp?) the sprinter from Jamaica looking like a football player-that dude was jacked
Yohan was also a juicer!
sort of
Deion said "always take the guy with skinny calves". Deion is right.
People babbling about "skinny leg syndrome" were/are just rationalizing.
I think you might have pissed Cole Beck's quads off! Cuz they look angry here.

That's a better picture.
he just went under 10 seconds with no help, the man is a legitimate beast
He's one of the fastest white men to ever run the 100. Incredible effort, and I hope he can get the NCAA title in the finals
Beck ran a wind-legal 9.97 tonight in Austin in the 100m semifinals of the NCAA Championships. That was the 4th fastest time among the 9 finalists, and he's looking absolutely fantastic heading into Friday's final.
Besides further lowering his school record and dipping under 10 seconds for the first time, 9.97 puts him just outside the top 10 in the world this year.
Dude, this guy is a first ballot hall of famer. Retire his tights like yesterday.
Tomorrow's finals field is absolutely loaded, but Beck has a legitimate shot at finishing top 3.
He's definitely put himself in position to make some real money after he leaves VT. He's getting some well-deserved attention from Total Running Productions, which is a great YouTube channel if you are at least a casual fan of Track and Field.
The Men's 100 Meter Semifinals Were Crazy-TRP