Quincy Wilson: USA’s 16-year-old 400m relay star set for a remarkable Olympic debut | Paris Olympic Games 2024

There was never a time in 16-year-old Quincy Wilson’s life that he wasn’t fast. It’s a fact that has propelled him to the Paris Olympics, where, if ESPN sources are to be believed, Wilson on Friday will become the youngest US male track and field athlete to ever appear at the Games.

Wilson’s mother, Monique, was the first to chase after her son once his feet touched the ground as a 10-month old.

“It was a lot of energy, jumping and running around at a very young age,” Monique says. “And [real] running, like he wanted to be all over the place. I could tell that he was going to be something.”

Quincy’s father, Roy, a US Navy submarine commander, travelled continuously, leaving Monique to handle her tasmanian devil and his older sister, Kadence, who would grow up to run for James Madison University. Monique had played soccer at college, and knew sports could help fill the hours and burn away some of her son’s boundless energy.

She enrolled a three-year-old Wilson in a local soccer league, where he was noticeably quicker and more agile than even the older children. Later, in tag games on the school playground, he was always the chaser; the other kids rarely bothered to pursue him.

“The other kids said it wouldn’t be fair,” says Wilson, who was deemed to have an unfair advantage. Still, his classmates were easy for him to grab, so Wilson made it a challenge to capture them as quickly as possible. In his head, he had already started chasing the clock.

Watching her son start to easily outrun his peers by age seven, Monique sought out a more organized group, the Fort Meade Highsteppers, a youth track-and-field team on the Maryland military base. As she had hoped, becoming a part of the team afforded Wilson more opportunities to race outside their community. The results were immediate. The next year, an eight-year-old Wilson took fourth place in the 400m in his age category at the AAU Junior Olympics, the largest youth sports tournament in America.

Wilson calls it a pivotal moment, where a small fish ventured into much larger waters and realized he could not only survive, but thrive.

“I think that was my motivation for my next year,” says Wilson, who shaved off nearly four seconds in his return to the tournament. “And the next year when I was able to come back to the Junior Olympics, I was able to win a [400m] national championship.”

Wilson would defend that title for five of the next six years. The only time he didn’t win was when the Covid pandemic hit in the 2020-21 season.

At age nine, Wilson moved with his family from Maryland to Chesapeake, Virginia, where he joined Track 757, another local youth club that met a few days a week and competed throughout the year. He also played middle school football, where his speed was a boon at wide receiver and safety. He says he loved the two sports equally.

“My parents never made me pick one or the other,” says Wilson, “and I think that was a really great thing, because I was able to get a break from either football or track when I needed a break.”

Wilson was also inspired by his cousin, Shaniya Hall, who won a national high school title in 400m and would go on to run for the University of Oregon.

“My mom always showed me Shaniya’s Facebook posts and that they were all always winning national championships,” says Wilson. “My cousin Shaniya, [and 100m sprinter] Eric Allen – they were running extremely well, so my mom reached out to our cousin’s family for advice.”

The decision to move states from Virginia back to Maryland was confirmed when Quincy’s father was promoted to a post in the area, reuniting the Wilson’s with family and friends.

In fall 2022, Bullis track and field coach Joe Lee watched pensively from the sidelines as Wilson suited up for the school’s high school football team. When Wilson developed fluid buildup in his arm, it delivered the star athlete to Lee sooner than expected. It would be Wilson’s last season on the gridiron. It wasn’t an easy decision. Wilson’s father had played football for the Naval Academy

“I loved football just as much as track, but I felt I was succeeding more in track,” says Wilson. “I felt I grew more with track when I started working extremely hard at it.”

There were two things Lee noticed about Wilson at one of his first meets. The first one was obvious: Wilson was fast – he ran a 400m split of 45.06 after only one month of practice. Lee’s second observation made him even more hopeful, when Wilson anchored the school’s relay team to a second-place finish.

“He wasn’t happy about us coming in second, not that he was upset with the team,” says Lee. “He was upset with himself because he thought he could do more. That same year, he became the first freshman to win the [New Balance 400m] national title.”

In 2024, Wilson ran events from 200m all the way up to 800m – all with success – but the 400m has always been his sweet spot.

He defended his indoor title at the New Balance Nationals in March this year and also became its outdoor 400m champion a few months later. But at the US Olympic Trials in June, he set the Under-18 world record in the preliminaries and beat that time two days later in the semi-finals before falling out of contention in the final, where he finished sixth.

“He dedicates everything he has, at every opportunity. He doesn’t waste reps,” says Lee. “He’s very focused on his goals and doesn’t allow himself to set limits or expectations on what he can and cannot do.”

Wilson’s mercurial US Olympic Trial performances thrust him into the spotlight, where his tenacity – and youth – won the crowds over. Wilson’s effort also created a great visual: the average height for a male sprinter is 6ft 2in. Wilson is 5ft 9in.

“He’s got long arms and legs [in proportion to his torso],” says Lee. “That’s one of his superpowers, so to speak, but he really gives us everything with the talent that he’s been blessed with and doesn’t see it as a deficit at all.”

Wilson had targeted Paris for his Olympic debut, though his parents thought the LA Summer Games in 2028 were a more realistic goal. And although her husband has travelled all over the world, Monique’s fear of flying has kept her from some of her son’s bigger races, until now.

“I mean, it all just caught us by surprise,” says Monique. “If you had asked us last month, what are our plans for the rest of the summer? Yeah, this would not have been in those.”

Wilson did not make the team for the 4x400m mixed relay, where the US were pipped into silver after a thrilling finish. But he says he will be in the team for Friday’s heat of the men’s 4x400m. He’s in form anyway: he improved on his Under-18 world-record time again on 19 July, just a few days before he boarded a flight for Paris. He has also been enjoying himself as part of the US team, posing for photos with basketball stars such as LeBron James – whose sons are older than Wilson – during last week’s opening ceremony

“It’s been extremely hard to get here, but at the end of the day, I know that the hard work is why I’m in the position that I am in right now,” says Wilson. “And I think one of my special abilities is being able to know in a workout that the hard work that I’m doing is going to pay off – if not this week, next week, or next year, I know that at some way, or somehow I learned a lesson on the track or in life.”