Track's next great sprinter is bypassing college and signing with Puma

Christian Miller was a high school senior last April when he became one of the fastest teenagers in track and field history. Running 9.93 seconds in the 100 meters one month before his 18th birthday left Miller wondering how much faster he could go. 

Now, he’ll have his opportunity to find out — as a professional.

Miller has signed a professional contract with Puma, he told NBC News, a decision that places him in the small club of track athletes who have bypassed the NCAA to turn pro straight out of high school. 

Miller will continue to train in Jacksonville, Fla., where he grew up, and focus on the 100 and 200 meters under Ricky Fields, his longtime coach. He will also take online classes on computer science, digital media and cinematography through Liberty University. 

Miller, who has since turned 18, is not yet a household name but that could change by 2028, when the Olympics return to Los Angeles. His fifth-place finish in the 100 at June’s U.S. Olympic track and field trials emboldened his confidence that he belonged with professionals, he said.

“What I’m most excited about this coming year is definitely stamping my name down as one of the most dominant track and field sprinters out there,” Miller said. “Usually you hear the names in recent years, you heard the names like Noah Lyles, and you’ve heard Letsile Tebogo and things like that. I’m trying to stand myself down as one of the top 100- and 200-meter runners.”

Though Miller announced in July that he would forgo his NCAA eligibility and turn professional instead of running for the University of Georgia, which shoe company he would run for had not previously been reported until his interview with NBC News. 

Several shoe companies had competed to sign Miller over the summer before he chose the German sportswear maker whose most famous client, Usain Bolt, owns the world records in the events Miller contests. Details of professional contracts in track and field are rarely disclosed, and the terms of Miller’s were not, either. But his agent, Mario Bassani of Mezzo Management Group, described it as a multi-year deal that ranks among the sport’s most lucrative for an athlete making their pro debut. Miller had also previously signed an endorsement contract with Oakley. 

Miller first considered a jump directly to a professional career after a breakthrough senior season at Creekside High School near Jacksonville. The highlights included finishing fifth at June’s U.S. Olympic track and field trials, and becoming only the sixth man under the age of 20 to run a 100 in less than 10 seconds. 

Miller said he believed he would run fast when he settled into the blocks April 20 at a meet in Clermont, Fla. And yet, he did not expect to run 9.93, which stood as the fastest time in the world until June 1. The time ranks Miller second all-time on the world under-20 list, behind only the 9.91 run by future Olympic gold medalist Letsile Tebogo in 2022. (Issamade Asinga’s under-20 world record of 9.89, set in 2023, has since been stripped following a four-year ban for a doping violation.) 

Should he execute his races as he expects in the coming season, “those times will be putting that U20 world record definitely on record-breaking watch,” Miller told NBC News.

“Every single year I’ve had, I feel like I’ve taken a big leap moving forward. I felt like if I were to go to college, from the times I already ran, I felt like I would be taking a step back almost,” he said. “I looked at all the resources and things that I had back at home and everything I would have at UGA. And I just kind of told myself that I’m trying to go big, and I’m trying to really make a stamp in the track and field world and I feel like this is the best way to kind of put my talent out there and kind of strike while the iron’s hot. That’s why I decided to go ahead and turn pro.”

For many U.S. and international athletes, the NCAA serves as the most-common pipeline to professional careers. A few have passed on it to turn professional and found quick success, such as sprinters Noah Lyles, Erriyon Knighton and Tamari Davis and middle-distance runner Hobbs Kessler who all have since become medalists at global track and field competitions. All will be considered favorites to make the U.S. team headed to the 2025 world championships in Tokyo. 

Miller is confident he can join them, calling his experience at the Olympic trials instructive of what a professional career would look like.

“It was a good milestone for me to kind of look at, because I was lined up against some of the world’s fastest guys,” he said. “So I was looking at it and just telling myself that I can really compete with the world’s fastest.”

This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News:

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