In June 2024, Michael Granville predicted that Justin Northwest superstar Cooper Lutkenhaus could break the high school national record of 1:46.45 in the outdoor 800 meters that Granville set in 1996.
A year later, Granville’s prophecy became a reality.
Running against a phenomenal field at the Brooks PR Invitational in Renton, Wash., Lutkenhaus broke Granville’s national record by running 1:46.26 on Sunday.
Lutkenhaus also shattered the meet record of 1:47.55 that was set in 2015 by Donavan Brazier. Brazier went on to win the 800 at the World Championships in 2019. Owen Powell from Mercer Island, Wash. finished second in Sunday’s race in 1:46.63.
Siri, show me Superman.
— RunnerSpace (@runnerspace) June 8, 2025
Cooper Lutkenhaus is him.#BrooksPR pic.twitter.com/NJPghfUwbD
Lutkenhaus, who still has two years of high school remaining, now owns the indoor and outdoor national records in the 800. He ran 1:46.86 as a 16-year-old at the Millrose Games in February in New York to break Josh Hoey’s high school indoor record, which was quite a feat given that Hoey is now the American indoor record holder in the 800 at 1:43.24.
Lutkenhaus broke his own outdoor state record by winning the Class 6A state title in 1:47.04 in May. He has never lost an 800-meter race against high school athletes in his first two years at Justin Northwest, and the only 800 race he didn’t win in that span was at the Millrose Games, when he ran against Olympians and professional runners.
In a Zoom interview with Lutkenhaus on Texas MileSplit last June — before Lutkenhaus ran 1:47.58 to win the 2024 Brooks PR Invitational — Granville predicted that Lutkenhaus could destroy the high school national record of 1:46.45 that Granville set while running for Bell Gardens in California in 1996.
“I see something in you that is going to last throughout college, through the Olympics,” Granville said at the time. “You have something in you that you can tap into. You’re running 1:49, 1:48, but the way you tap into that, 1:44 is just going to be so easy. Take that record to 1:45, 1:44.”
All 10 runners entered in Sunday’s race had run under 1:50 in their careers. That included Penn pledge Joseph Socarras from Florida, who ran 1:47.66 this season to rank second in the nation behind Lutkenhaus.
Lutkenhaus is trying to qualify for the U.S. Outdoor Championships that serve as the trials for the 2025 World Championships in Tokyo, and the automatic qualifying standard for the U.S. Championships is 1:45.60. Lutkenhaus has already met the minimum qualifying time of 1:47.50, but that might not be good enough to get into the field of 32 for the U.S. Championships.
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