iStockphoto / worradirek
Texas A&M athlete Infinite Tucker finished 2nd in the 400-meter hurdles back in 2018 at the SEC Track and Field Championships. This year he was determined to win it all no matter what he put his body through.
After clearing all of the hurdles in the 400-meter race at the 2019 SEC Track & Field Championships this past weekend, Infinite Tucker was running side-by-side with his teammate Robert Grant. As the finish line came up they were neck and neck.
Infinite Tucker’s coach has told him in the past that the fastest way to cross the finish line is running through it but he wasn’t hearing any of that today, not in this race. Instead, Infinite Tucker decided to bust out his best ‘Superman’ impression and dive head first/arms out through the finish line and win by a hair.
The clip of this dramatic finish has since gone viral on Twitter and YouTube. I’ve included clips from both mediums below for you to choose from:
He went full Superman! @aggietrk's Infinite Tucker goes ALL OUT for the gold. #SCtop10 pic.twitter.com/gEr05kdPd9
— SEC Network (@SECNetwork) May 12, 2019
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Tucker won his gold medal with that leap across the finish line and it’s unclear if he would’ve won if he just ran through the finish line like he’s been taught. He looks completely gassed there at the end as if one more step would’ve been the one that broke him. Maybe in this instance leaping was the right play. It’s easy to say that it was the right move in hindsight because he won the gold medal but we don’t know how the race would’ve ended if he just kept on running.
“Honestly, I’m glad I got the win and competed against the best. Me and my teammates all worked hard for this and I came out with the win. I’m happy and thankful for that. The mindset was to score as many points as possible, we wanted to go 1-2-3-4. It really didn’t matter which one of us won first place, we knew if we gave it our all we would be happy with each other.” (via 12thman)
His teammate who finished second didn’t seem to have a bruised ego after the race. He made a joke about how he’d be kicked off the team if he said what he was thinking but it was all in good fun and he seemed happy for Tucker who won it all at the 2019 SEC Championships.