Joe Lee, track and field coach at Bullis School in Potomac, had to finish praising 16-year-old phenom Quincy Wilson’s character, taking a break to gather his emotions and wipe away tears. At the Hayward Field track, Athing Mu was starting her race in the 800 meter final, a step in the defense of her Olympic gold medal and another moment of healing her broken relationship with the sport she once loved. Had won easily.
The U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials are a brutal spectacle. It doesn’t matter if you’re a magical creature that America has come to love – there are grown men with livelihoods in crisis who want to leave you in the dust. It doesn’t matter whether you appear on a magazine cover or have your face in an ad campaign on Hayward Field – if you trip over someone’s foot for a quarter in your race, you’ll have a chance to prove it. You have to wait four years for you to still be the best in the world.
Wilson, at age 16, managed to finish sixth in the 400 meters final, a remarkable achievement that capped a week in which he twice broke a high school record that had stood for 42 years. Mu, the graceful and shaken queen of American middle distance running, faltered and fell less than halfway through her first lap while running through a dense thicket of limbs and spikes. His family members stood up in the stands and shouted, “No!” Mu got up from the track, sprinted 50 meters towards the group of runners ahead and was faced with a shocking reality.
Mu kept running till the line. She crossed in 2:19.69, more than 22 seconds behind champion Nia Akins, and more than 20 seconds behind podium finishers Ellie Wilson and Juliet Whittaker. Mu has a habit of crossing the finish line alone after 800 metres. She couldn’t imagine doing it this way. Her face contorted into a pained frown, and she buried her face in her hands.
“It’s definitely one of the toughest parts of this sport – and especially this event,” Whittaker said. “The cruel nature of the sport is that no matter how fit you feel going into a race, you never know what’s going to happen.”
Wilson’s history-making, euphoric bid to earn an automatic Olympic quota at the trials ended Monday. But he will not bow down without a fight. Wilson, the prodigy who had just finished his sophomore year at Bullis a few weeks earlier, passed three sprinters in the homestretch and finished sixth in 44.94 seconds in his first Olympic trials, at the age when friends were trying to get a driver’s license. I am busy. Quincy Hall was the surprise winner in 44.17, followed by Michael Norman (44.41) and Chris Bailey (44.42).
As Lee contemplated what Wilson had shown the world, he walked away and took off his sunglasses. Even once he returned, emotions choked his words.
“He showed his character, his fight, his determination,” Lee said. “He’s a great kid, man. He’s a great kid.”
In Friday’s preliminary round, Wilson broke the national high school record by winning her heat in 44.66 seconds. In doubt whether he would be able to maintain his stamina through the tough rounds of the trials, Wilson reset the record to 44.59 in Sunday’s semi-final, moving from fifth to third in the final 100 meters to qualify for Monday’s final. Has reached. He met heroes like Noah Lyles and Grant Holloway and received well wishes from Tyreek Hill, Deion Sanders and Snoop Dogg.
“I just know I gave everything I had and then some,” Wilson said. “I can’t go back and be disappointed. At the end of the day, I’m a 16-year-old adult.”
When friends back home asked Wilson if he wanted to play video games, he was eventually able to answer yes, but he’s not quite ready to relax. Although his race at the individual podium ended on Monday, Wilson could still become a Paris Olympian. USA Track & Field can select two additional 400-meter sprinters for its 4×400 relay pool, to which all U.S. trials entrants are eligible. Based on the performance over the last four days, Wilson has made a compelling case. The last date for submission of roster is 7th July.
“I don’t know if my season is over yet,” Wilson said. “I don’t want to go out and get ice cream that early. I may get that call.
If selected, Wilson would become the youngest American person to compete in track and field at the Olympics. He would break the record held by Arthur Newton from 1900, who ran the 2,500 meter steeplechase at the age of 17 years and 166 days.
Lee knew that Wilson had exceeded any imaginable expectation by finishing sixth in the country. He knew and hoped that USATF would select him for their relay pool, a choice full of possibilities. He knew Wilson wanted to make the Olympics, but he wasn’t crying over the outcome. He was crying over the way he felt about Wilson.
“Yes,” said Lee. Her voice became louder again, and she tapped the fence to collect herself. “I know this is what he wanted. You are also happy. They’re tears of joy because you know he’s making history. There is pressure from the world on him. We will be back.”
Mu only had the result. She arrived at the trials with a troublesome hamstring and her relationship with her sport had been shaken since her Olympic starburst three years earlier. Mu had not raced all year, so she was forced to make her 2024 debut with an Olympic spot at stake. Having participated in the trials three years earlier, his road back was even more difficult.
Mu remains one of the most magnetic runners on the planet and the face of American track and field. She graces the latest cover of Sports Illustrated. Huge photos of him and Sha’Carri Richardson in the Nike ad campaign ring Hayward Field. It would not have surprised anyone if she had defeated Britain’s Keeley Hodgkinson and Kenya’s Mary Mora, who were ahead of her at the World Championships in Paris last year.
His ascension felt at once ordained. She demolished the 800m field at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. She wore a beret emblazoned with the word “Confidence” and announced that she would break the world record. In a dream 4×400 relay foursome, Mu won another gold with Allyson Felix, Sydney McLaughlin and Delilah Muhammad. Mu ran the anchor leg, along with the all-time American leader in track and field medals and two women who broke the 400-meter hurdles world record.
When Mu stopped to breathe, she felt nervous. He struggled to adjust to the pressures of pro track and field. She was still dominant, still controlling the race with her graceful gait, but the weightlessness with which she operated away from the track began to disappear. “I was so happy it was over,” Mu said after beating Hodgkinson to win the 2022 world title. “Today was a hard day for me.”
The burden he felt became even deeper. Mu considered quitting the World Championships last summer. At the last minute she decided that she would defend her title. In the last 300 metres, two rivals overtook him. She still won bronze, but Mu was defeated for the first time on the world stage.
“Overall there is a lot of pressure,” he told reporters in Budapest later. “You are thinking too much. The last few years have been great.”
Mu remained in the top 800 in this country, but had work to do to regain global prominence. She suffered a hamstring injury in April, preventing her from racing and losing valuable training time. He still won his semifinal heat here, but then the unthinkable happened. Then came the cruelty of the trials. Then tears came.
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