After turning heads at the recent U.S. Olympic trials in Eugene, Oregon, 16-year-old Quincy Wilson will have the opportunity to do the very same in Paris later this summer.
Wilson and his coach, Joe Lee, confirmed reports to ESPN on Monday that the young star had been added to the Team USA relay pool.
“When I got the call, I was like, I was ecstatic,” Wilson told ESPN. “I started running around the house. It was just a moment for me because everybody dreams about going to the Olympics as a young kid.”
Although failing to qualify for the 400 meters at the trials, the young sprinter will be part of the U.S. team that gets sent to Paris to run the 4×400 relay. A rising junior at Potomac, Maryland’s Bullis School, Wilson will be the youngest American male track athlete to appear at an Olympics.
Wilson announced the news on Instagram late Sunday, writing in all caps: “WE GOING TO THE OLYMPICS.”
First, it was Lee who received a phone call late Sunday night from the committee responsible for the relay pool decisions. They made the request for Wilson to be “ready to run any leg at any time.”
Once he hung up, Lee phoned Wilson. When the teen picked up, the coach played a small prank on him.
“I was extremely nervous and then he called me and said just like, ‘Unfortunately, we have some bad news,'” Wilson said. “And then he was like, ‘I’m just kidding. We’re going to Paris.'”
Wilson first started dreaming about competing at the Olympics during the 2106 Games in Rio. At the time, he was participating in the Junior Olympics as an 8-year-old.
“I remember I see Justin Gatlin and Usain Bolt go head-to-head and I was just like, ‘I want to be up there one day,'” Wilson said. “And I told my mom, dad, and now, it’s the dream come true.”
During the trials, a version of that dream appeared to Wilson while he slept.
“I was dreaming about it when I was in Oregon about to do my third run. I dreamed about being an Olympian,” Wilson said. “It was just being on that Olympic stage, holding that gold medal, and things like that.
“When you dream about it a lot, it does come true when you put your work to it.”
Wilson’s addition to the relay pool came after he ran under 45 seconds in three separate 400-meter heats at the trials last week. Following a preliminary round that included him breaking the under-18 world record that had lasted for 42 years, he set another under-18 world record time two days later in the 400-meter semifinal.
“I’ve never been this happy a day in my life when it came to track. I’ve been working for this moment,” Wilson said minutes after his 44.59-second semifinal. “That’s 42 years, 42 years of nobody being able to break that record, and I broke it twice in [three] days.”
A day later, Wilson ran a 44.94-second time in the finals, but finished sixth, failing to qualify for the Olympics in the event.
In the days that followed, some around the sport pleaded for his inclusion in the relay pool, nonetheless.
“He deserves it,” said Rai Benjamin, Olympic 400-meter hurdler and member of the gold medal-winning U.S. 4×400 relay in Tokyo. “The kid came out and ran 44s all three rounds.
“I’m not worried about him on the technical side of things, because he’s run multiple 4x4s, and he and his coach know how to keep it simple. He deserves it. The kid ran freaking well all weekend.”
Wilson is unsure which relays he will be part of, but he still feels as though he owes an enormous debt to his “older brothers” on the overall team.
“Now that I’m on the USA team, these guys are like my older brothers,” Wilson said. “I don’t want to let my older brothers down. And when you’re running for a why and [know what] your why is … you’ll always run faster.”
At the Penn Relays in April, Wilson ran under 45 seconds twice in his team’s 4×400-meter heats. He set a Penn Relays high school 400 record when he sprinted a 44.37-second anchor leg in one of them.
Between now and the Olympics, Wilson is having regular practices, and plans to run one 400-meter race in either London or Miami. In the meantime, he’s recruiting high school teammates to help him work on relay exchanges and hand-offs so that he’s ready for Paris.
“I’m going to be working on just possibly enhancing all of my races, making sure that I practice with any lanes,” Wilson said. “You never know. It could be first, second, third or fourth leg.”
