Sidi Njie’s[ produced jah] mom, Alicia, a former track runner herself, was the one who suggested he start running. One day she saw him running in the apartment complex and decided she would have him run track.
In those beginning years, he didn’t take track that seriously. He had a good team and coaches around him and his only motivation was to have fun and reset the history books.
One of the records he broke is still standing today. He ran 27.80 to win the 200 meters on August 4, 2015 in the preliminaries of the AAU JO at Dick Price Stadium in Norfolk, VA as an eight year old.
His elementary and middle school years, he competed in AAU and USATF competitions and won more often than not. By eighth grade, he had lowered his personal bests to 11.16 for the 100m, 22.03 for the 200m, and 49.19 for the 400m.
As a freshman at Westlake, his attitude towards track began to change. Westlake is the high school that produced NFL football players Cam Newton, A.J. Terrell and Adam “Pacman” Jones. Sports and academics are paramount there and Sidi began to take his track and field a bit more seriously.
He also played football and basketball for the team. This year, he’ll drop football, but if he makes the basketball team in October, he’ll decide if he is going to continue playing. Both basketball and football have helped him stay in condition for track.
He had regular season personal bests of 21.87(2.2) and 47.55 that he set at the Arcadia Invitational his first year of high school. At the state championships, he finished second in the 200(21.01, +1.8) and won the 400m(46.41). “Speedy” as his friends have nicknamed him had his first state title.
He’s always studied the greats like Usain Bolt and how he ran his races. He sees himself being that good one day and wants to learn how he raced and how he progressed so he can stay on track and not make mistakes. He looks to the internet to see who his competition is so he knows how fast he needs to be, how fast he should be.
“I’m just looking at everybody getting better around me. That fuels me to be better. I remember one time Quincy [Wilson] went 46.1 and my time was 46.15. The next week I started the state series. By state I ended up going 46.03 in the semi finals and 45.46 in the finals. That is what fuels me to get better and be better than everyone around me.”
That sophomore year at state was a huge breakthrough for him. He hadn’t expected to run that fast and had consistently been in…
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