Xavier "X-man" Carter

Carter’s 2007 season was interrupted when he suffered a knee injury that sent him tumbling to the track in the finals of the men’s 200 meters at the AT&T USA Outdoor Championships in Indianapolis. He bounced back later that summer to win in Zurich with a season’s best time of 19.92 seconds. In only his second race outside the United States at the 2006 'Athletissima' Super Grand Prix meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland, Carter poured it on down the stretch to pass fellow American Tyson Gay to win the men's 200 meters in the mind-blowing time of 19.63 seconds (wind +0.4 mps), the second-fastest time in history. Only Michael Johnson's world-record time of 19.32 seconds from the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta is faster. Carter's performance was a gargantuan leap forward from his previous career fastest time in the 200 meters of 20.02 seconds from 2005…Carter made history in winning four titles at the 2006 NCAA Outdoor Championships in the 100m, 400m, 4x100m relay and 4x400m relay. He started off running the second leg of LSU's 4x100m relay team, which was victorious in 38.44 seconds. The next day began with a 10.09 seconds (personal best) victory in the 100 meters and continued a half hour later with a winning 400m time of 44.53 seconds (personal best). Carter finished off his weekend anchoring LSU's 4x400m relay team, which won the national title by more then half a second. With his performance in Sacramento, Carter became the first athlete since Jesse Owens in 1936 to win four titles at a single NCAA Outdoor Championship and the first athlete ever to win both the 100m and 400m at an NCAA Championships…Carter was named the SEC's Indoor and Outdoor Freshman Runner of the Year in 2005, and he capped the collegiate season by earning a trio of All-America honors at the NCAA Outdoor Championships. He anchored the Tigers to a national title and collegiate record in the 4x400-meter relay (2:59.59), clocking a blistering 44.0-second final-leg split, which is only the third sub-three minute performance in NCAA history and the first since the 1988 season ... Also ran the second leg on the Tigers' 4x100-meter relay team that earned All-American honors for their fourth-place showing (38.86) ... Individually, just missed out on a NCAA title in the 200 meters, earning runner-up honors with a time of 20.08. During his freshman indoor season he set a new LSU school record in the 200 meters on three separate occasions. First broke the old record of 20.69, set by Eddie Griffin in 1996, at the New Balance Invitational in New York City. Bettered that effort in the prelims (20.47) and finals (20.39) of the SEC Championships ... Carter finished up his sophomore season as a wide receiver on the Tigers' 2006 football team, playing in 10 games, including the Tigers' 40-3 win over Miami in the Peach Bowl. He finished the season with four catches for 86 yards, including a 49-yard touchdown reception in LSU's win over North Texas…He came to LSU as one of the most coveted recruits in the country. Running the 100, 200 and 400-meter dashes, he won nine Florida state titles, 10 regional, district and county crowns and nine Cape Coast Conference titles. He is the only athlete in Florida history to win state titles in the 100, 200 and 400 in back-to-back years (2003 and 2004). As a senior he set the national record in the indoor 200 meters, clocking 20.69 to become the first high school athlete to run under 21 seconds indoors. He was named the USA Track and Field, NIKE, Gatorade and National High School Coaches Association, Track and Field Athlete of the Year during both his junior and senior seasons. Carter has been "running fast to win" since he was 13 years old. That was when he first started to take track seriously. He admits that athletics was never his first love and at first he wasn't even that good at it. In fact, he was "lured" into it by his father, Ken, as a way to get faster and fitter for his main sporting obsessions: American football, basketball and baseball. "I was one of the slowest guys at first," he says of his early races as a schoolboy in Melbourne, Florida, where he grew up. "I really wasn't interested in track. You could see there was talent there but I was kind of a lazy kid and just wanted to play football. I would lose. "Then after a couple of years I thought 'If I'm going to be in it, why not win?' So I began to work and became one of the quickest in the state. The track coach (Gary Evans) pulled it out of me."
2007: 1st at Zurich (19.92)…4th in 200m at adidas Track Classic (20.26)….Nike Prefontaine Classic champion 200m (20.23)…2nd at Brussels (20.04)…ranked #3 in world by T&FN…best of 19.92.2006: 1st at Lausanne (19.63WL, #2 All-Time)…NCAA Indoor 400m champion, 200m runner-up (45.28, 20.30)...NCAA outdoor 100m and 400m champion (10.09, 44.53)…1st in 4x100m and 4x400 at NCAA Outdoors (38.44, 45.6)... 1st at Sacramento (10.09PR & 44.53PR)…3rd at Rome (44.76)… 8th at Stockholm (10.27)…2nd at London Grand Prix (19.98)…ranked #2 in world (#2 U.S) at 200m; #8 U.S. at 100m by T&FN…bests of 10.09, 19.63WL.2005: 9th at USA Outdoors (20.71)NCAA Outdoor runner-up (20.08)SEC Outdoor champion (20.16)1st at NCAA Mideast Regional (20.02PR)ranked #6 in world, #4 U.S. by T&FN...best of 20.02. 2004: Bests of 10.50, 20.72, 45.44. 2003: Bests of 10.38, 20.69, 45.88. 2002: Bests of 10.52w, 21.02, 46.90 2001: Best of 46.95.