Olympian Quincy Wilson Has the Best Answer for what He Did This Summer

By Barry Svrluga / The Washington Post

16:01 JST, August 10, 2024

SAINT-DENIS, France – Whatever his path forward, Quincy Wilson will never again bask in the moment that washed over him Friday morning. He climbed into the starting blocks at Stade de France, a wall of sound growing around him. He may well race in other Olympics. He will never again do so for the first time.

“It was,” he said, “amazing.”

What other reaction is there? He is 16. On the Tuesday after Labor Day, he will begin his junior year at Bullis School in Potomac, Md. Marry that with the fact that – as the French fans sang and swayed to Joe Dassin’s “Les Champs-Élysées” – he held the baton in the semifinals of the men’s 4×400-meter relay at the Paris Summer Games.

When the starter’s gun rang through the arena, Wilson burst from the blocks. With that step, he became the youngest track and field Olympian in American history.

“Honestly, I was kind of like, in the moment,” said Vernon Norwood, second on the American team in Friday’s round, “because I’m watching a 16-year-old run in the Olympics – making history.”

No wonder Norwood was lost in the unlikelihood of it all. He is 32, a gold medalist in this event three years ago in Tokyo. Sixteen years ago, Norwood started running track as a junior at Louisiana’s Morgan City High School. That January, Wilson was born.

Wilson earned the right to be in those blocks, to take the baton in the opening leg of a race that would position the United States for Saturday’s final, with his preternatural performance at the U.S. trials in June. During that meet in Eugene, Ore., Wilson’s time in the first round of the 400 meters was the second-best in the field, a notice to the men around him. His time in the semifinals, 44.59 seconds, lowered his own under-18 record for the event. In the final, he finished sixth in 44.94, which put him in the mix to be included in the relay pool for Paris.

In the interim, he ran in a July meet in Florida and ratcheted down his under-18 record to 44.20 seconds. In that race, he beat Bryce Deadmon, the 27-year-old Texan who was a national champion in this event last year, who won a gold in the 4×400 three years ago in Tokyo, and who was entrusted with the third leg here Friday morning.

Reminder: Wilson’s junior year of high school begins in 25 days. This all adds up to mind-boggling.

“I told him when I was 16, I was not thinking about the Olympics,” said Masai Russell, a women’s 100-meter hurdler who is from Potomac and also went to Bullis. “I was probably somewhere eating some ice cream. I was running track, still, but this level is crazy. It’s still crazy to me, and I’m 24 years old.”

Which is what Wilson will be not at the next Summer Games, four years from now in Los Angeles, but two Summer Games from now in Brisbane, Australia. Russell reminded him: “‘Even people way older would be dying to be in your shoes. People who run track their whole life never made the team.

“I asked him to take advantage of the opportunity,” she said. “Keep your head up.”

That was a big part of the process Friday, an American team – one enjoying success in event after event over the entirety of this meet – embracing their teenage brother, some combination of protection and coddling. The times say Wilson belonged here, and in track, times don’t lie. But add a full stadium and a national audience, then replace the “Bullis” across his chest with “USA,” and there’s a weight athletes much older than Quincy Wilson have felt before.

“I told him before we [went] out there,” Norwood said. “I said: ‘Hey, embrace it. You belong here. This is the privilege. Nobody in this world gets this opportunity, so make the most of it.’”

Here’s the hard part: On Friday at the Olympics, Wilson didn’t run his best race, not close to it. Coming out of the blocks in Lane 4, he was alone on the backstretch, when the staggered start of the 400 hadn’t yet evened out. But as he came around to the final 100 meters along the front, it was apparent he was struggling in both form and against the field. For a moment he seemed last. When he handed the baton to Norwood, he was seventh in an eight-man field.

“I wasn’t 100-percent myself,” Wilson said afterward.

Why was that?

“To be honest, I’d rather not answer that question,” Wilson said. “It’s a lot of different things, so I’d rather not answer.”

That felt somewhat ominous not more than 12 hours after Noah Lyles, the men’s 100-meter gold medalist, finished third in the 200, his signature event, then fell to the track. Minutes later, he told reporters he had tested positive for the coronavirus.

Wilson’s split time of 47.27 was more than three seconds slower than that under-18 record from less than a month ago. This is a lot for a kid whose outdoor season was supposed to peak at, say, the Penn Relays in April. Instead, he carried through to the trials. Instead, he carried through to the Olympics.

He carried the baton until he gave it to Norwood, spent. Only the top three teams in each heat were guaranteed a spot in Saturday’s final. In an event in which the United States has won gold four of the past five Olympics, making the final wasn’t supposed to be an issue. Norwood and Deadmon – who both ran the final in Tokyo – and Christopher Bailey would have to make up some mileage to clinch a spot for Saturday’s final.

“My great determination got me around the track,” Wilson said. “And I knew I had a great three legs behind me, and I knew it wasn’t just myself today. Because if it was myself, we would be in last place.”

Not quite. But close.

As it turned out, Norwood blistered around in 43.54, faster than anyone who ran the second leg, to scratch to sixth. Deadmon followed that with a lap of 44.20, faster than anyone in the third leg, to climb to fourth. Bailey then had to pick off only one team, and when he tracked down Japan’s Kentaro Sato to surge into third, the Americans were safely in the final.

The way the relays work, the Americans can replace runners from the semifinal with fresher, faster athletes to run for gold. Thus, Wilson’s Olympics are almost certainly over. He will receive whatever medal his countrymen can deliver Saturday night, in part because his countrymen already delivered for him Friday.

“These guys came out there and gave it their all,” Wilson said. “First all the way to fourth leg, they ran their hearts out.”

Quincy Wilson did, too. It wasn’t his Olympian best. It was his Olympic first. Whatever plays out in the years ahead, Friday will matter. At 16, the first-time jitters are over. At 20 or 24 or 28, he’ll be able to tell the kids who come next: You earned this opportunity, just like I did back then.