Nia Armstrong set the record. Then she broke her own record. Then she broke it again.
The Sickles High sophomore swept the hurdles events at the FHSAA Class 4A Track and Field State Championships on May 9 at Hodges Stadium in Jacksonville, winning the 100 hurdles in 13.41 seconds and the 400 hurdles in 58.88 — a time that set a new school record by nearly a second.
In the 400, Armstrong edged St. Thomas Aquinas’ Kyara Belfort of Fort Lauderdale by almost a full second, with Coral Springs’ Samantha Bandres Chourio and Cypress Creek’s Alondra Rodriguez rounding out the top four.
Her win in the 100 hurdles avenged a runner-up finish in the event a year earlier.
The 400 time marked a more than three-second improvement over her 1:02.36 at the Vernon Korhn County Championships earlier this season. Two weeks later, she lowered her personal best again, clocking a 57.97 at the New Balance Showcase during the Southeast Meet of Champions on May 23, also at Hodges Stadium.
She plans to compete this summer at the Under Armour Nationals at IMG Academy and the Nike Nationals in Oregon.
The state titles fulfilled a prediction Armstrong made a year ago. After the 2025 championships, she told the Tampa Bay Beacons she expected to win both events in 2026.
“There’s an amazing athlete in the 100 hurdles, and I’m not disappointed either in the 400 because the girl’s a junior and I’m a freshman, and I can get her next year — I know I can,” she said.
Armstrong comes from a family of track standouts. In 2025, she and her older brother, Jabari, then a graduating senior, brought home four medals between them in the 100 and 400 hurdles. Jabari now runs at Wichita State, and their oldest sibling competes at Bethune-Cookman.
Their father, Sherman Armstrong, was Big Ten Athlete of the Year in 2000 at the University of Illinois, a four-time NCAA All-American and a nine-time Big Ten champion. He still holds the school record in the 400-meter hurdles and was the only collegiate athlete to reach the U.S. Olympic Trials final in the event that year. He also made the trials final in 2004. He now owns and directs VAST Sports Performance, a track club and training facility in Citrus Park.