Quincy Wilson, the 16-year-old track sensation who set the under-18 world record in the 400 meters during the U.S. Olympic track trials late last month, will be joining the Americans for this summer’s Paris Games, The Washington Post reported Sunday night.
The Bullis School student from Potomac will be part of the 4×400-meter relay pool, his coach, Joe Lee, told The Post after the conclusion of the trials. If he were to compete in Paris — rosters are not finalized until Sunday — Wilson would become the youngest male American track athlete ever to compete in the Olympics, breaking the mark set by Arthur Newton, who was 17 when he competed in the steeplechase in 1900, according to U.S. Olympic historian Bill Mallon, The Post said.
Wilson gained immediate fame when he won his 400-meter heat at the Olympic trials in Eugene, Oregon, on June 22, finishing with a time of 44.66 seconds, breaking the then-under-18 world record of 44.84 set by Justin Robinson five years earlier. One day later, he earned a spot in the final by finishing third in his semifinal in 44.59 seconds, breaking his own record.
“I’m just running for my life out there,” Wilson said after that race. “The race plan went out the window but I did what my coach had told me. I have a lot of things I can do to improve myself for tomorrow [now] that I’m in the finals. … I think I have great things for tomorrow, and I can’t wait for tomorrow.”
Wilson came in sixth in the final Monday, running the single lap in 44.94 seconds and finishing outside the Olympic qualifying window.
“All I know is I gave everything that I had and then some,” Wilson said after the final. “I can’t go back and be disappointed. At the end of the day, I’m 16 running grown-man times.”