At stake tonight in the highly anticipated 110m hurdles rematch between Florida’s Grant Holloway and Kentucky’s Daniel Roberts is the title of greatest high hurdler in NCAA history. An NCAA final can’t get any more intense than that, and these two have consistently shown that when they meet, something special is bound to happen.

While the Holloway-Roberts rivalry has really only materialized this season— the Kentucky junior was not a threat to his SEC counterpart before this year— it has made up for lost time with high drama throughout the winter and spring. 

Holloway was transcendent at the indoor NCAA Championships, sweeping both the 60m and 60m hurdles, the latter in an American record of 7.35. But even then, Roberts showed he was gaining on Holloway by eclipsing his previous collegiate record with a 7.41. The stage was set for a thrilling outdoor duel over 110m hurdles.

But not even that indoor entrée suggested how truly tantalizing their back-and-forth would become outdoors. Holloway nipped Roberts 13.28 to 13.30 in their first showdown in March, a closer-than-expected result to be sure, but at that point there was still no indication that the tide was turning in Roberts’ favor.

That all changed at the SEC Championships last month. While Holloway cracked off a huge 13.07 PB and world lead in the prelims— second fastest in collegiate history— he couldn’t quite duplicate it in the final as Roberts caught him over the final few hurdles with a 13.07 of his own. Holloway ran 13.12, not a poor time at all, but the ramifications were huge: the Florida star had lost his first collegiate hurdles final in two years, and the heavy pendulum of momentum swung in Roberts' favor. 

Holloway didn’t seem to sweat the loss too much, instead chalking it up to an off day. At Tuesday’s press conference, he said his defeat to Roberts was a result of running “like shit.” He claimed his pattern got off from the beginning of the race, which caused him to run out of steam over the final meters. With Roberts dropping a 13.06 world lead in the NCAA semi-final on Wednesday, Holloway knows he can’t run that poorly again and expect to beat the fastest man in the world.

.@RiseOfDRob #NCAATF 110H record in the semifinal
13.06https://t.co/l9D3t8JGmN pic.twitter.com/IU6ZJhbX8y

— UK Track & Field (@KentuckyTrack) June 6, 2019

With both men knocking on the 13.00 collegiate record door on multiple occasions this season, logic goes that one of the two superstars, if not both, will finally break Renaldo Nehemiah’s 40-year-old mark on Friday. But winning this historic battle and doing so under 13 seconds would have significantly different meanings for each man.

Holloway, the two-time defending champion, has been “the man” in this event since he arrived at Florida two years ago. One of his primary motivations for returning to Florida instead of going pro was breaking Nehemiah’s record, and all signs were pointing that way after his massive indoor campaign. But the concept of him chasing the record with another guy beside him is a novel one. Roberts ran a solid 13.27 PB in 2018, but he had never even been an All-American before this year. Anyone who claims to have seen his ascent coming is either a coach, a teammate, or lying.

One of these men is going to win tonight in Austin, with either Holloway regaining his previous stranglehold on the event and sealing his legacy as the greatest collegiate high hurdler ever, or Roberts swiping the crown from the king with an unprecedented rise to the top. Either way it’s going to be an incredible story, and in all likelihood it will come with the fastest performance the NCAA has ever seen.