Congratulations are in order for 16-year-old track star, Quincy Wilson. The talented young athlete has made history as the youngest male track Olympian since 1976 and is set to compete in the Paris Olympics
Selected to join the 4x400M relay pool for Team USA, Wilson expressed his excitement in an interview with ESPN:
“When I got the call, I was like, I was ecstatic,” Wilson told ESPN in a recent interview. “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.”
According to ESPN, 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.
A rising junior at Bullis School in Potomac, Maryland, Wilson showed humility in his post-meet interview, saying, “I’ve never been this happy a day in my life when it came to track. I’ve been working for this moment.”
Reflecting on his record-breaking performance, Wilson added, “That’s 42 years, 42 years of nobody being able to break that record, and I broke it twice in [three] days.”
Well-wishes and congratulations have poured in from some of the sports industry’s most famous faces. Gold medal Olympian Rai Benjamin praised Wilson, saying, “He deserves it. The kid came out and ran 44s all three rounds.”
Even basketball legend Magic Johnson joined in, inviting Quincy Wilson and his family to a Commanders game.
Wilson’s main goal for Paris is to ensure he doesn’t let his “older brothers” down. “Now that I’m on the USA team, these guys are like my older brothers. 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,” he told ESPN.
To watch Wilson and “his brothers, tune into the 2024 Paris Olympics, held from Friday, July 26 to Sunday, August 11 in Paris, France.
