After a record-breaking 2026 track and field season at Richmond, Malikiah Tharp is looking to 2027 – to a point.

With fall sports practices set to kick off in August, Tharp said June 1 that he’s spending his summer break focusing on his fall sport – football.

“But I definitely want to win state next year,” he said.

Tharp nearly won four events this season at Class 3 state competition – two individual events and two relays. Individually, he placed second in the 100and 200-meter dashes, finishing the 100 in 10.7 seconds and the 200 in 21.34.

“In prelims in both of my open races, I didn’t do that great – just ran good enough to qualify for the finals,” he recalled. “And I went out there and did my best on finals day.”

Tharp “came up really close” to winning the 100 finals, he said. Indeed, it was close enough that the state champion, Southern Boone’s Hudson Talley, won by 0.005 second, according to the final results posted on the Missouri State High School Activities Association website. Talley’s actual time was 10.692. Tharp’s was 10.697. Both times were rounded up to 10.7.

“Felt like I won it, but it’s all good,” Tharp said. “I’ll be back next year.”

With his time in the 200, Tharp broke the 47-year-old school record of 21.5, set by Robbie Robinson, a 2024 Richmond Spartan Athletic Hall of Fame inductee.

“I’ve been chasing that since freshman year,” said Tharp, who recently finished his junior year.

With his time in the 100, Tharp broke his own school record.

As the leadoff runner, Tharp helped Richmond place second in the 800 and 400 relays. Cardinal Ritter College Prep won both relays, setting Class 3 state records in the two races.

“I was just trying to get out fast, get my team a head start, praying that they could finish it, but we came up short,” Tharp said. “But still proud of how we did and we had a great season.”

As the Richmond News recently reported, Tharp and relay teammates Brice Dome, Treyton Alexander and Cyrus Jackson did well enough to break school records in both relay races. With the record-breaking performances, Tharp, Dome and Alexander bid farewell to Jackson, who graduated high school in May.

When asked what it was like to run relay races with Jackson for the final time, Tharp replied: “It was great. We all have great team chemistry. We’ve all kind of grown up together a little bit. Some of us are kind of related in some way.”

Tharp’s string of runner-up finishes helped Richmond finish second in the Class 3 boys team standings with 40 points. The Collegiate School of Medicine and Bioscience, a St. Louisbased school, won the state title with 49.5 points.

“It was a great finish to their impressive season,” David Rash stated recently via email.

The finish also marked the end for Rash, who has retired from Richmond as a coach and teacher, including as varsity boys and girls track coach, and as defensive coordinator for the varsity football squad. Tharp said he knew it would be Rash’s farewell because he had told the football players during spring camp of his plans to retire.

“We’re all sad about it,” Tharp said. “We all like Rash.”

Specifically, Tharp appreciated the teaching Rash provided in coaching strength and conditioning, he said.

“He pushed everybody, and he definitely knew what he was talking about,” Tharp said. “And he knows a lot about what he teaches, and I’m definitely going to miss him being my football coach as well.”