Just over two weeks after asserting himself as the next great hope of American track and field, Cooper Lutkenhaus was beginning his day as he always did. It was 7 a.m. at the start of the workweek in Justin. Later the sixteen-year-old would have to attend his junior-year classes at Northwest High School. For now it was time to run.

Even before August third of this year—when Lutkenhaus registered the fourth-fastest eight-hundred-meter time in American history at the U.S. Outdoor Championships in Eugene, Oregon, and became the youngest U.S. athlete to ever qualify for the World Athletics Championships —everyone in Justin knew how fast Lutkenhaus was. When a teenager moves as quickly as he does, it’s hard not to notice. Sweat beaded off Lutkenhaus’s neck that Monday morning; the shadow of

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