Sidi Njie’s[ produced jah] mom, Alicia, a former track runner herself,  was the one who suggested he start running. One day she saw him running in the apartment complex and decided she would have him run track. 

In those beginning years, he didn’t take track that seriously. He had a good team and coaches around him and his only motivation was to have fun and reset the history books.

One of the records he broke is still standing today. He ran 27.80 to win the 200 meters on August 4, 2015 in the preliminaries of the AAU JO at Dick Price Stadium in Norfolk, VA as an eight year old.

His elementary and middle school years, he competed in AAU and USATF competitions and won more often than not. By eighth grade, he had lowered his personal bests to 11.16 for the 100m, 22.03 for the 200m, and 49.19 for the 400m. 

As a freshman at Westlake, his attitude towards track began to change. Westlake is the high school that produced NFL football players Cam Newton, A.J. Terrell and Adam “Pacman” Jones. Sports and academics are paramount there and Sidi began to take his track and field a bit more seriously. 

He also played football and basketball for the team. This year, he’ll drop football, but if he makes the basketball team in October, he’ll decide if he is going to continue playing. Both basketball and football have helped him stay in condition for track.

He had regular season personal bests of 21.87(2.2) and 47.55 that he set at the Arcadia Invitational his first year of high school. At the state championships, he finished second in the 200(21.01, +1.8) and won the 400m(46.41). “Speedy” as his friends have nicknamed him had his first state title.

He’s always studied the greats like Usain Bolt and how he ran his races. He sees himself being that good one day and wants to learn how he raced and how he progressed so he can stay on track and not make mistakes. He looks to the internet to see who his competition is so he knows how fast he needs to be, how fast he should be.

“I'm just looking at everybody getting better around me. That fuels me to be better. I remember one time Quincy [Wilson] went 46.1 and my time was 46.15. The next week I started the state series. By state I ended up going  46.03 in the semi finals and 45.46 in the finals. That is what fuels me to get better and be better than everyone around me.”

That sophomore year at state was a huge breakthrough for him. He hadn’t expected to run that fast and had consistently been in the low to mid 21s in the 200m and the 46 range in the 400s during the regular season.

What was even more impressive was that he had a full slate on both days of the state meet. In Friday’s preliminaries,  he ran a leg on the 4x 100 meter relay which led qualifiers with a 40.34;  then he ran the 400m in 46.03 and ran the 200 meter prelim in 20.97(-0.5) some 30 minutes apart. He finished it off with a 44.6 leg on the 4 x 4 team that ran 3:14.22. On Saturday, he did it again. He had the 4 x 100 meter relay  which his team won in 40.31, then he 30 minutes later he ran the 400m in 45.46. That time took him by surprise.

“At the start, I knew I had to catch the runner in lane 5 who was ahead of me. That was the only goal. I caught him on that backstretch  and  I thought ‘Okay, it's time to turn this up a notch.’ I felt the energy of the crowd. It was amazing. As I felt that and just knowing that somebody else  was trying to catch up to me, I just I took off and ran that extraordinary time. It really surprised me because I did not know I was going to run that  this year. I thought I was going to run 45 high, but not 45 low. That was crazy. That blew my mind.”

70 minutes after that he was back on the track for the 200m finals. He finished second with a new personal best of 20.82(-0.1).

50 minutes later, he ran a leg on his team that finished with the fifth in the final event of the night, the 4 x 4 in 3:20.13. His tally of 23 points helped his team to the team title with a 60-46 win over Buford. The girls team also won.

He has high hopes for this upcoming season. He wants to add weight lifting to his training regimen. Last year, his coaches didn’t think he needed it because he dropped so much time without them, but this year he is aiming for low 44s. He wants to win the 100, 200 and 400 meter dash triple at state. He feels he’s capable of running a 10.0s if he cleans up his start. 

“ Every time I run it is different every year. Every year I have new goals. This year is U20s but I also want to try out for the Olympic team. I noticed I was this year, and the top times were 44.2 and stuff. This year I want to go 44 lows here during my high school track meets. That's my goal, for sure. I want to go to Paris. I really want to go to Paris. I love Paris. “