AS IF HE DIDN’T ALREADY have enough hurdles in his life, Trey Cunningham decided to write a master’s thesis outside of his field. Cunningham’s professor at Florida State let him veer from sports management into sports psychology, where he explored the correlation between athlete personalities and burnout.
In his 124-page study, the ’22 world silver medalist in the 110H found that “neurotic people are predisposed to burnout.”
But while Cunningham’s ’23 and ‘24 seasons were so full of injury and frustration that he had to “fall back in love with the sport,” he insists he didn’t have a classic case of burnout.
“I’m actually not neurotic enough,” the 26-year-old Alabama native says. “I’m too chill. My issue is not neuroticism. Mine is like, ‘Can I do this?’ I got on the line and it was a lot of ‘What if?’ questions.
“Now they come up, but when I get to the line, it’s like, ‘All right. Do your thing.’”
And Cunningham has been doing his thing this season with confidence and consistency.
Cunningham opened outdoors at the Tom Jones Memorial in Gainesville in April, running 13.38 in his heat to finish behind Dylan Beard (13.28).
What happened next upended the high hurdles scene. In the final, Cunningham powered to a 13.09 clocking, his best time since August ’22, to hand long-time rival Grant Holloway (13.18) his first loss on U.S. soil in the 110H in 11 years.
The World Junior-record holder in the indoor 60H says the turning point was mental, not physical. “It’s a belief that I can do what needs to be done and that I don’t have to do anything special to be a winner,” he says. “Because what I do is enough.”
Cunningham worked on his headspace with the same dedication he puts toward making sure his trail leg is at 12 o’clock every time.
“Because for us, our body is like our race car,” says Cunningham, who consults with a sports psychologist after every meet. “And if you don’t know if your race car can go, there’s some doubt. I believe my race car can go now, so I’m ready to go.”
Invited to compete as a challenger at Grand Slam Miami in early May, Cunningham equaled his PR of 13.00 from the ’22 NCAA Champs while defeating a stellar field that included Sasha Zhoya (13.06), Freddie Crittenden (13.09) and Jamal Britt (13.10).
He moved to No. 2 on the ’25 world list, trailing only Cordell Tinch who ran 12.87 in China the same day.
In the flat 100 the next day, Cunningham crossed the finish line in an impressive 10.17, followed by Britt at 10.20. Cunningham hadn’t run a 100 since 2019, when he posted a time of 10.64, and thought he could have run faster if his acceleration pattern had been more efficient. Because Zhoya was “talking a lot of smack,” Cunningham took a bow after the race en route to taking home the $100,000 first prize to put toward a down payment on a house.
“The 100 gave me extreme satisfaction that I can sprint,” says Cunningham. “It was a fun event and then the hurdles, those guys are in a world championship final every year so it shows me where I’m at relative to everybody else.”
He says his 100m speed shouldn’t have come as a surprise. “We have to sprint in practice,” Cunningham says. “We don’t hurdle all the time.”
But he’s not contemplating an event switch. “I don’t run that fast,” he says. “If I break into 9 seconds, maybe.”
The pressure was off for the adidas Atlanta City Games on May 17, where Cunningham cruised to a 13.16 on the temporary, elevated track.
The time was faster than he expected because he’s still in heavy training. “I haven’t really tapered that much,” says Cunningham, who trains in Tallahassee with his longtime coach, Matt Kane. “In the weight room, we’ve tapered like every other week. I have to last until September [for the World Championships]. That’s a long time, especially when you have to run it 110 percent every race.”
He’s believes it’s only a matter of time before he cracks 13 seconds, something just 26 men have done. (Among those 26, only Omar McLeod, who ran 9.99, and Terrence Trammell, who ran 10.04, have posted faster official times in the 100, although many of the hurdlers do not have a listed 100 PR.)
“Each race I’m putting more energy, effort into each hurdle,” Cunningham says. “It’s kind of like controlled aggression, controlled competitiveness — not trying too hard, but not trying too little. So each time I’m just turning it up just a little bit.
“Because if I start trying way too hard, like I start muscling it out, I mess up.”
His next event is Grand Slam Philadelphia (May 31–June 01), where Tinch is also slated to run. Cunningham is still deciding between meets in Rome or Jamaica, and then has Paris and Monaco on his schedule.
“I like to race; I don’t like to practice,” Cunningham says. “Practice is much harder than my race. I feel like hurdles is very rhythm-based, so I want to keep it going.”
After his sensational ’22 in which he won indoor and outdoor NCAA titles, the Bowerman Award and the Worlds silver medal, Cunningham had some setbacks.
“I almost broke my back in March (of ’23),” he says. “I think it was from squats, an over-use thing.” He couldn’t lift weights for two months while his spine recovered.
Then he tore a hamstring and wasn’t expected to compete at the trials for the ‘23 Worlds. “I almost made the team after not practicing for three or four months,” says Cunningham, who was fifth in the final.
The next year, he tore his hamstring at the World Indoor in Glasgow, where he placed 6th. “I didn’t really get healthy from that until May-ish,” he says.
Cunningham posted a couple of 13.12s in June of ’24, including the heats of the 110H at the Olympic Trials. And then, he says, “Everyone decided to run fast.”
In the final, Cunningham recalls, “It was the first time in my life that I had to work through the race. I’d always just gone and ran. I never had to think about how I needed to perform, but my body was freaking out for some reason.”
In 2021, he had placed 4th in the Trials, just missing the Olympic team. This was another big moment.
“I usually love the big moments, Cunningham says. Not this time. In the fastest hurdles race in history — with the Top 5 running 13.09 or faster, Cunningham was 9th at 13.39.
“I knew how fast we were moving in the race and I wasn’t moving at that pace,” he said. The more Cunningham thought about it, the worse it got. He rebounded with solid meets in Paris, Hungary and Monaco, and then devoted himself to off-season training.
“I take this like a 9-to-5 job, but it’s actually 9-to-6 or 9-to-7,” says Cunningham, who also has a portfolio with the Ford modeling agency as a sideline. “I only get one shot at this. The agents, the meet directors, all the people that are the support staff for the athletes, they get multiple ‘careers.’ We get so many years and we’re done.”
The Olympics is still missing from his résumé and Cunningham understands the focus and discipline it takes to not only make the U.S. team, but to win a medal. “It’s three rounds and that is 36 chances to mess up, more than any other event,” Cunningham says. “You’ve got the start, the finish and the 10 hurdles.”
He notes that in the past, a hurdler could have a great day by running 12.9 or 13.0 and the rest of the field would run 13.1 or 13.2. “Now you basically have to run 13.0 to even be in the Top 3,” Cunningham says. “I also don’t think most of the media or the common people know what a fast hurdle time is — 13.1 is fast. They just know the 100 and they know some of the distance events because they can relate.
“Hurdles is really hard to relate to. We run 110 meters. It’s kind of a weird distance and we have things in the way. There’s only so many people on the planet that have run 12 seconds and people expect us to run 12 seconds every time. And it’s not news unless we run 12 seconds, which is kind of crazy to me, because the 100-meter guys can run 10 seconds and get all the news in the world, but that’s not even top 50 of the guys who ever ran the 100.”
Cunningham has vowed to leave the sport with no regrets.
“I’ve beaten everybody in the world who runs,” he says, “and I know I want to be the best ever at this event.”
