The World Athletics Championships 2025 took place at the National Stadium in Tokyo, Japan, this past week. This event allows the world’s best athletes to showcase their skills and this year two former Bison were among them.
2023 Howard University graduate Dylan Beard represented Team USA men’s 110m hurdles. The first round of the men’s 100m hurdles occurred Sept. 15 with Beard clocking 13.28 seconds, the fastest time in his heat. His time secured his spot in the semi-finals; however, the next day, he was unsuccessful in qualifying for the finals.
Joining Beard on this stage was Jessika Gbai, a 2022 Howard graduate. Representing Côte d’Ivoire in the women’s 200 meters, Gbai showcased her talent by advancing to the semi-finals with a time of 22.81 seconds, but, similar to Beard, she did not qualify for the finals.
In just two years as a professional track athlete, Beard was able to reach the World Athletics Championships 2025. Beard did not dwell on his loss and acknowledged how big of an accomplishment it was to get to the competition.
“My biggest takeaway was to live in the moment,” Beard said. “I have no regrets about how I performed. I genuinely just took it for what it was, a competition, the biggest competition in front of the world against the world’s best.”
“And now I want more,” Beard continued. “I want to be back at the world championships and I want to be at the LA 2028 Olympics. I want it all now.”
Unlike Beard, who had extensive track accomplishments in high school and during stints at Hampton University and Wagner College before coming to Howard as a graduate student, Gbai enrolled in Howard straight out of high school with no prior competitive track experience.
Gbai tried out for the team during Coach David Oliver’s first year as director of track and field, and he was eager to turn the program around. So, he decided to take a chance on her.
“It’s really just timing,” Oliver said. “We had just gotten here as coaches, the team was fairly nonexistent and she wanted to run. She, along with a couple of her teammates that also walked on to the team that year, took that opportunity and cemented themselves as legends at Howard.”
Gbai took that chance and ran with it. She developed into one of Howard’s top performing runners, earning multiple Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) honors and setting records in the 100 meters, 200 meters and both relays at Howard.
Following her career at Howard, Gbai quickly made a name for herself, qualifying for every World Athletics Championship since her graduation and securing a spot in the World Athletics Relays Bahamas 2024, where she qualified for the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics.
Gbai’s journey as a walk-on and Beard’s journey working at Walmart while being a professional athlete show that greatness isn’t limited to those who attend the “track and field powerhouses.”
“We’re watching these world championships and you’re looking at people that never went to college and people who never surpassed junior college,” Beard told The Hilltop. “That’s the beauty of the sport, the name on the front of your jersey never matters.”
“And when you have people that are smart enough to realize that the only thing that matters in this sport is who’s guiding you day to day, not anything other than that, then you’ll achieve the success that you ultimately should have.”
Athletes like Melissa Jefferson, a former Coastal Carolina University sprinter who rose from a mid-major program to become the World Champion in the 100 meters, serve as a testament to this. Her rise, alongside Beard and Gbai’s, opens the door for these mid-major programs to gain valuable athletes that would have otherwise gone to the bigger schools.
Copy edited by Daryl R. Thomas Jr.
