Hiltz previously won the 1,500-meter race at the 2023 US Championships and earned a silver medal in the same event at the 2024 World Indoor Championships in Scotland, per Fox News. Each sport's governing body sets the rules regarding transgender athletes at the Olympics. World Athletics, which governs the international track and field competition, generally allows nonbinary competitors assigned female at birth to compete in women's events if they haven't received hormone therapy, per NBC. For Hiltz, making the US Olympic team is a childhood dream come true.

Nikki Hiltz, who identifies as 'non-binary transgender,' secured a spot on the United States Olympic track team by winning the 1,500-meter race recently. Hiltz, a biological female who describes herself as "gender-fluid," publicly came out as transgender in 2021, noting that her gender identity varies day-to-day. She explained, "Hi I’m Nikki and I’m transgender. That means I don’t identify with the gender I was assigned at birth. The word I use currently to describe my gender is non-binary." She further elaborated, "The best way I can explain my gender is as fluid. Sometimes I wake up feeling like a powerful queen and other days I wake up feeling as if I’m just a guy being a dude, and other times I identify outside of the gender binary entirely." Despite this fluidity, Hiltz competes as a woman in athletics, emphasizing that her identity on race days aligns with being a woman.

"I told myself, I’m not going to think about all the love and support (I have) until 100 meters to go,’" Hiltz said, via Runner’s World. "And then, at that moment, you can let it all fill you up and push you to the finish line.’ That’s exactly what I did, and I think that’s what brought me home." Hiltz also noted that it was the last day of Pride month.