Michael Norman appeared to have no equal heading into this week’s 400m U.S. Championships. The fourth-fastest man in history got that and more on Saturday afternoon in Des Moines as the 21-year-old, who ran a shocking 43.45 way back on April 20, was upset by 2018 Diamond League champion Fred Kerley, 43.64 to 43.79.

Just don’t tell Kerley that his second U.S. 400m title was an upset.

“If you look at last year, I had a successful season,” 24-year-old Kerley said after his PB and defeat of the previously unbeaten Norman. “I was still No. 1 in the world, which, the media counted me out, but that’s what the media’s for.” 

Perhaps some of that perceived slight was all the attention Norman has generated by peppering the 400m record books in the last year-plus. 

As a college sophomore in 2018, the USC star broke the 400m indoor world record in March (44.52) before eclipsing Kerley’s own collegiate record with a 43.61 at NCAA Outdoors that June. The pro transition this year hasn’t slowed him down a bit, as Norman’s season-opener at the Mt. SAC Relays produced the fastest debut by anyone ever, a gold-medal level performance that marked an astonishing leaping off point. 

In June, Norman even stunned Noah Lyles in the 200m with a 19.70 win in Rome; no one else has beaten Lyles in that event outdoors since he turned pro in 2016. With every performance, he seemed closer to quarter-mile invincibility in 2019. Entering Friday’s race, Norman had won 16 straight open 400m races.

Kerley did win the Diamond League title in a Norman-less race last September, but a comparatively modest 44.49 season’s best this year and a sizable loss to Norman at Pre four weeks ago had further obscured his presence coming into Des Moines. 

But a confluence of factors helped produce the biggest upset so far of these championships. The version of Kerley that ran the previous 43.70 collegiate record in 2017 and then won USAs that year as well reappeared in Iowa, while a banged-up Norman-- dealing with an unspecified “strain” that he revealed after the race-- couldn’t rally on Kerley in the final 100 meters. He was second in 43.79.

How much below 100-percent Norman was is unclear, but the 21-year-old said that he couldn’t do speed work at all for the two weeks leading up to Des Moines. According to him, the injury nearly put him out of the championships altogether. It wasn’t until his warm-up for the first round on Thursday that he decided to compete.

“I had a little setback in practice, I haven’t practiced in 14 days,” he said. “I couldn’t run for about 10 days...It’s no excuse. I lost. I just want to be more consistent at practice and really benefit from every workout."

However severe Norman’s injury truly is, he still managed to run the third fastest time of his life. He was Michael Norman in Des Moines. He may not have lost to Kerley without the injury, but Kerley’s performance was strong enough to suggest he could cause the world leader problems later this season even if Norman gets a handle on his ailment.

“The days are counting down and I need to prepare myself for the Diamond League final and World Championships, especially when competitors like Fred Kerley are just as strong and just as fast as me,” said Norman.

Kerley says a return this season to his coach at Texas A&M, Alleyne Francique, has helped elevate him back to his form from two years ago. The sprinter made a brief detour at the Altis training group in Phoenix in 2018, but it didn’t work out, so he quickly linked back up with Francique for this year. The partnership had netted two NCAA titles, a collegiate record and a U.S. crown in the span of three months in 2017, and it’s apparent that Kerley felt he needed Francique’s services to reach beyond that.

“Last year I went to a different training program and now I’m back to my old ways, back to my A&M coach,” he said. “I’m blessed to be back in the same position I was in 2017.”

“He gets my mind ready, get it prepared for the race. Track and field is a mental game, so he gets my mental prepared back right.”

Kerley doesn’t want to call his defeat of Norman on Saturday an upset, which on its face comes off as absurd given how superior the rookie pro had been of late. But his 43.64 in Des Moines served as a reminder of the force he was not too long ago, and now that the incumbent gold medal favorite has been dethroned, what he very well could become later this year in Doha.