Aries Merritt

Aries Merritt is one of those athletes who reminds you just how thin the line is between greatness and tragedy — and how sometimes a person crosses back over it. The Chicago-born hurdler had what I'd call a perfect storm of a year in 2012: Olympic gold in London and then, just weeks later, a world record of 12.80 seconds in the 110m hurdles that still stands as of 2024. That combination alone cements his legacy. But what really gets me is the 2016 story — the guy competed in the Rio Olympics on one functioning kidney, having just donated the other to his sister, and still managed to bronze. That's not athletic achievement, that's something else entirely. I think Merritt is criminally underappreciated outside of track circles, and frankly deserves to be talked about in the same breath as the all-time greats of the hurdles.

Name (English)

Aries Merritt

Name (Japanese)

アリエス・メリット

Reading

ありえす・めりっと

Born

July 24, 1985 (age 40)

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Leo / Ox

Origin

Chicago, Illinois, United States

Height

185 cm

Occupation

hurdler / athletics competitor

High school

Joseph Wheeler High School

University

University of Tennessee

Motto

Private

• Official sitehttp://ariesmerrittonline.com/
• Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/amhurdlestar/
• Xhttps://x.com/amhurdlestar
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%A2%E3%83%AA%E3%82%A8%E3%82%B9%E3%83%BB%E3%83%A1%E3%83%AA%E3%83%83%E3%83%88

Tags

• Illinois
• hurdler
• athletics competitor

Last updated

2026-06-02

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.