After Historic Olympic Meet, What’s the Encore for U.S. Track and Field?

The Washington Post / Rick Maese

15:41 JST, August 11, 2024

SAINT-DENIS, France – Over the course of nine days, they paraded from the finish line to the medal podium, shedding tears, waving flags and collecting medals. With each heave and every leap, each burst out of the blocks and every lean across the line here, they reset the course of American track and field.

In this final night of the Olympic track and field meet, it happened to be high jump, hurdles, relays and a long-distance race – but virtually everyone had a turn at these Paris Games. The Americans exceeded expectations at Stade de France and bounced back from a subpar showing in Tokyo, winning 34 track and field medals, including 14 golds. It’s the United States’ best track and field showing since the 1984 Games in Los Angeles, where it won 40 medals, 16 gold on home soil.

The Americans reached the podium in 20 of the 35 track and field events held at Stade de France. Had U.S. track and field stars somehow sought status as an independent nation, their 14 golds would be tied for sixth on the overall Olympic medal table, ahead of countries such as Germany, Italy and Canada.

So it was perhaps fitting that this Olympic meet closed with the U.S. national anthem playing on a crisp Parisian night. Workers waited to reconfigure the stadium for Sunday’s Closing Ceremonies. But first, the Americans’ stellar women’s 4×400 relay team stood beaming atop the podium, accepting their gold medals after decimating the field by more than four seconds, finishing just 0.10 seconds shy of a world record.

The relay squad, which has won gold in the 4×400 race at every Olympics dating back to the 1996 Atlanta Games, exemplified the excellence the U.S. runners showed throughout the meet. It featured Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, who leaves here with two golds, matching her medal haul from Tokyo, and Gabby Thomas, who is the first American runner since Allyson Felix in 2012 to win three gold medals at an Olympics.

“We were watching people win medals all week,” Thomas said. “I was so inspired watching my teammates do what they do. I know what it takes. I know how hard it is to win a medal in track and field. It’s a very cutthroat sport, especially at this level.”

The men’s 4×400 relay grabbed gold Saturday night, too, setting an Olympic record and capping an important bounce-back meet. Three years ago in Tokyo, the American men didn’t win a single individual race. In Paris, the men took gold in five (Noah Lyles in the 100 meters, Quincy Hall in the 400, Cole Hocker in the 1,500, Grant Holloway in 110 hurdles and Rai Benjamin in 400 hurdles).

In all, the men medaled in nine of 10 individual track races – the most for any country since the first time all of these events were part of the Olympic program in 1920. Three years ago at the Tokyo Games, the Americans finished on the podium in five of these events, which include sprint events, middle- and long-distance races, and hurdles. It’s rare for a team to finish on the podium in more than a few of these events. Since 2000, the United States and Kenya are the only countries that have medaled in at least half of these 10 races at a single Olympics.

The only men’s race that didn’t feature an American medalist was the 800 – and in that one Bryce Hoppel set a U.S. record with his 1:41.67 finish.

So how did this happen and what does it mean?

Benjamin said U.S. track and field athletes – individual sprinters, jumpers and throwers who are scattered all around the country and typically come together only to compete against one another – embraced the team mentality the moment they arrived in Paris. If they weren’t at the track, many watched the action together each night back at the Olympic Village. Every U.S. medal built excitement and momentum, starting with Grant Fisher reaching the podium in the 10,000 meters, the meet’s first medal event, followed the next day by six American medals, which included Ryan Crouser’s gold in the shot put and Sha’Carri Richardson’s silver in the women’s 100.

“How my teammates set the tone on Day 1 kind of dictated subconsciously what the team would do throughout the rest of the championships,” said Benjamin, who won a second gold here Saturday as part of the 4×400 relay. “… It’s very infectious. When you’re down there and you’re mingling with everyone, you kind of get the sense, okay, the ball is rolling here. Everyone is doing it.”

Fisher felt it. He got the podium parade started on Aug. 2 with his bronze and returned Saturday night with a third-place finish in the 5,000. Late in the grueling race, “I honestly thought I was toast,” he said. But he kept pushing. He remembered his American teammates coming from behind and stealing wins – Hall in the 400, Richardson in the women’s 4×100 relay, Hocker in the 1,500. In the 5,000, Fisher was running seventh with about 120 meters to go and willed his way to third down the stretch.

“Maybe fighting for a podium is contagious,” he said. “You see guys getting medals fighting for a higher position than they were projected, and when you see that, you think it’s possible for yourself.”

As they leave Paris, the question hanging over U.S. track and field is: Now what? The sport has long struggled for relevancy and audience outside of the Olympics, particularly in the United States.

“Winning medals is pretty big for us in America,” Benjamin said, “and we go home, and no one remembers.”

There are efforts underway to build the sport between the Paris and Los Angeles Games. World Athletics has announced plans to stage a biennial “Ultimate Championship” beginning in 2026, featuring an elite field and stoking fan interest between its world championships. Michael Johnson, the four-time Olympic champion, is planning to launch a professional track and field league, starting next year. And Alexis Ohanian, the Reddit co-founder and husband of Serena Williams, is debuting the 776 Invitational in September – a track meet just for women.

“You still have this crazy paradox that you have historically always been the powerhouse of track and field, but your athletes can’t walk through here [in Paris], or the Bahnhofstrasse [in Zurich] or Brussels or London without being mobbed,” said Sebastian Coe, president of World Athletics. “They’re still in relative anonymity in their hometowns, and that’s a disconnect there.”

Coe says he has met with officials from both the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee and USA Track & Field in Paris with an aim of building up interest and excitement ahead of the 2028 Games.

“[If] it’s any other nation on the planet, this would be your national sport,” Coe said.

Many of the sport’s biggest stars became household names for at least a couple of weeks – Lyles, Richardson, Thomas, McLaughlin-Levrone. The goal is to make sure a sports-mad country with a short attention span and no shortage of entertainment options doesn’t quickly forget.

“This will be a pretty historic meet when you look back on track and field,” Fisher said. “Hopefully, this will lead into 2028, and we’ll have another good one there.”