Record-setting sprinter Zaya Akins takes her talents to the national level this summer

After winning 100- and 400-meter Missouri state high school titles for the second year in a row, Zaya Akins started her summer at home like many other teenagers her age: rewatching Grey’s Anatomy.

“That’s my third time watching (the show),” Akins said.

But the Raytown South junior didn’t get much of a break.

The very next weekend, Akins was back on the track, sweeping the 100-, 200- and 400-meter dash at the Great Southwest Track & Field Classic in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Akins still hasn’t lost a race in her high school career. She holds the Missouri state record in the 200 (22.94 seconds) and 400 (53.06).

The only true competition in her state, other than the goals she sets for herself? The records set by her trainer: Olympian Muna Lee, the Kansas City sprinter who holds the Missouri 100-meter record of 11.39 seconds, just ahead of Akins’ 11.42-second personal best.

So the natural next step for Akins is to take her talents to the national level, where her personal-best 400 time ranks fourth among U.S. high school girls.

Akins’ summer schedule is packed. She competes in the Nike Outdoor Nationals from June 16-19, the USA Track & Field Outdoor Championship from June 24-26 and the World Athletics U-20 Championships from Aug. 1-6.

Paying for the travel is a sacrifice for her parents, including her dad, Eli Akins, who set up a GoFundMe to help pay for travel funds.

But he has always supported his daughter throughout her track journey. A former star high school sprinter himself, Eli Akins brought Zaya to train with him at just five years old.

“She wasn’t the type of kid where you take her and she’s like, ‘Dad, I don’t want to go,’ he said. “It’s always like, ‘OK,’ and whatever I asked her to do, she did it. That’s when I knew she was going to be something because of her dedication and work ethic.”

“A lot of five-year-olds, their attention span isn’t there. They just move anywhere, but she’s listening. She did her starts right. She came out of the blocks right. And we begin to build from there.”

Zaya Akins was almost always willing to run and train with her dad. Almost.

When the family moved to Kansas City, he took Zaya, then 9, to her first practice with a track club. But she didn’t want to go.

“I cried my first practice,” she said. “I didn’t want to do it, but I ended up doing it, and I ended up liking it.”

At the first track meet with the club, Zaya won the 100. Then the 200. She said just a year later, she realized running could be her thing. At 12 years old, she ranked second in her age group nationally and faced some stiffer competition: her dad.

“When we were at track club, everybody was always like, ‘Who’s faster? You or your dad?’ he said.

When people would see a video of Eli running, they would tell Zaya she ran just like her dad, with almost identical form.

Then, at a barbecue held by the track club, the two raced. Both Zaya and Eli claim they won.

“When they’re talking trash to each other, it’s the funniest (thing),” Lee said.

But the father-daughter relationship isn’t just about funny trash talk or who’s faster. Even though Zaya said she’s definitely a better sprinter now, she also said the two have a really close relationship.

Just a few years after the infamous barbecue race, Zaya broke her leg playing volleyball. When she came back, she ran times she hadn’t run since elementary school.

“She came to me crying like, ‘I don’t think I’m going to be fast enough,’” Eli said. “But she got back in the gym … and all the work she put in, she’s just now seeing the rewards of it.”

Despite still carrying signs of the injury — a two-inch long scar and two screws in her left knee — Zaya Akins is back to being one of the top sprinters in the nation, collecting scholarship offers from Arkansas, Georgia, LSU, Texas, Texas A&M and UCLA, among others.

Standing a few inches taller than almost all of her opponents, the 5-foot-9 Akins uses long yet explosive strides and an ability to stay at top speeds longer than everyone else to win.

It’s a similar running style to many of the great sprinters she says she models her running after: Texas A&M runner Charokee Young, 800-meter gold medalist Athing Mu and longtime Olympian Allyson Felix, who ran on several relay teams with Lee.

Akins’ trainer knows better than anyone else what it takes to grow from being a top competitor in high school to an Olympian.

“Her next big challenge is going to be working under people faster than her,” Lee said. “She probably hasn’t had anybody out there dropping her in practice yet.”

But as lofty as Akins’ goals are — becoming an Olympian as well as a doctor or surgeon after her running career —she’s never struggled with any of them before.

“Every year, we sit down and say, ‘OK, this is what you ran last year. This is what you need to be at this year,’ Eli Akins said. “She knocks him out of the park every time.”

This year, the goal is to improve her 400-meter time to the low 52-second mark and reclaim first place in the nation. She’ll certainly have her chances this summer.

This story was originally published June 13, 2022 at 12:59 PM.