By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
The stage continues to grow for Tyus Wilson. While at Sterling High School, Wilson won three Kansas state high jump championships, missing a fourth season due to COVID-19. After high school, he won four Big Ten championships for the University of Nebraska. Last month, he won a USATF National Championship at Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore. Then on Tuesday, he finished sixth overall at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo after clearing the bar at 7-5.75 in front of a stadium full of fans.
“First meet on a world stage, that’s pretty hard to do, but it was awesome,” Wilson said from Tokyo. “The crowd was amazing. There were, I think, 50,000 in the stands. All of them were into the meet. It was a fun atmosphere to do it in, for sure.”
Wilson splashed onto the high school scene in 2018, winning a state championship as one of the best young jumpers in the nation. Throughout his career, he became one of just five jumpers in Kansas high school history to clear the bar at 7-3 or higher. In a 2018 interview, Wilson identified with Italian jumper Gianmarco Tamberi, who later won gold at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and 2023 World Championships in Budapest. Seven years after his freshman interview, Wilson jumped higher than Tamberi on the world stage.
“I’m a student of the sport, obviously,” said Wilson. “Watching some of those guys as I was growing up, then competing against them in person and hanging with them, it was an amazing experience. It was a dream come true. The first day, the qualifying day, it was pretty hard not to be looking around me the whole time. Once I got to the finals, I was comfortable and felt like I knew what I was doing.”
Wilson nearly reached the world stage a year ago. The top-three finishers at the USATF National Championships typically go on to represent the U.S. at the Olympics. Wilson finished third in Oregon with a best jump of 2.27m. Because he did not meet the Olympic standard of 2.33m, he missed the games in Paris.
A year later, Wilson turned that third-place national finish into a national championship by clearing 2.27m. Even his best height of the year at 2.29m was still four centimeters from the standard to compete in Tokyo.
“You’re fighting for centimeters at this point,” Wilson said. “It’s kind of crazy to think back to high school where, on my best days, I was jumping 7-2. The starting height at this past meet was 7-2.5. It’s crazy to see how much I’ve developed and how consistent I’ve been. I’ve had great coaching. I’ve had great teammates to push me to that level. To get to that 7-7, 7-7.5 mark, it’s in there but I’m going to need to get back to the drawing board over the offseason.”
In one final bid to make it to Tokyo, Wilson attended and won the NACAC Championships in The Bahamas in mid-August by clearing 2.24m. It was enough to move him from No. 36 to No. 24 in the world rankings and secure a Team USA spot in Tokyo.
“I was just trying to have fun with it,” he said. “I knew it was going to be a good meet and there were some good names there, but I didn’t want to put so much pressure on it that I underperformed or over-complicated anything. It was just another meet. Honestly, it kind of helped being a smaller meet. It didn’t feel like the whole pressure of the world was on me.”
Just four competitors made the bar at 2.22m at the 2025 USATF National Championships. Wilson cleared 2.27 on his third and final attempt to secure the gold. In Tokyo, Wilson cleared 2.25m on his final attempt to reach the finals. Tuesday, he cleared a season-best 2.28m on his third and final attempt to secure sixth place. Wilson missed the world bronze by just three centimeters. Hamish Kerr, the Olympic gold medalist from New Zealand, kept his world title by clearing 2.36m (7-8.75).
“That’s kind of been the story of the season; third-attempt makes indoors at the NCAAs. The US Championship at 2.27, and qualifying for the finals at Worlds on the third attempt, then getting sixth on the third attempt,” Wilson said. “When I look back on my career, back in high school, if I got to the third attempt it was pretty much over. To see how I’ve developed as an athlete, when you’re on your third attempt, it’s not over yet.”
Tuesday’s finish put Wilson on the world high jump map. Where the road goes next is yet to be determined.
“It sets me up for, hopefully, some professional jumping,” said Wilson. “I don’t want to put too much pressure on it. I’m just having fun. I have one of the greatest jobs in the world right now, just going around and pretty much playing a game. It’s a dream come true and something I’ve wanted ever since I was a kid. It gives me opportunities to travel the country and to see the world a little bit, but I also get to meet some awesome people along the way.”