16-year-old sprinter Quincy Wilson made history on Aug. 9, becoming the youngest U.S. male track Olympic athlete in history as the rising junior at Bullis High School in Potomac, Maryland, ran the first leg of the men’s 4×400 relay in the qualifying race for Team USA.
Wilson left Paris with a gold medal after the U.S. men’s relay team won gold on Aug. 10, although he did not participate in the final after running a 47.27 second leg in the preliminary round, well below his U18 world record of 44.20 seconds he set on July 18.
After the race, Wilson commented that he wasn’t quite himself during the competition, but his performance inspired heavy praise from his relay teammates.
“Honestly, I was kind of in the moment, because I’m watching a 16-year-old run an Olympics, making history,” Wilson’s teammate Vernon Norwood said in an ESPN article. “So I was very proud of him, and I’m just looking at him like, ‘Oh, snap back in and let me get this thing going.'”
The remaining runners were able to come back from seventh place and three seconds down from the pack to advance to the finals with a third place finish behind three strong legs from Norwood, Bryce Deadmon and Christopher Bailey.
After receiving his gold medal due to his participation in the qualifying race, Wilson posted a picture of himself on social media with the medal and a caption that read, “Dang I really got school in two and a half weeks.”
Wilson will look to continue breaking records high school records this upcoming season at Bullis.