Quincy Wilson, age 13, was captivated. He couldn’t take his gaze away from the Tokyo Olympics, which were shown on television.
His mother, Monique, sat and watched with him at their Maryland home.
“I want to be there one day,” Wilson told his mother. “I want to run for Team USA.”
“Keep working, Quincy,” Monique instructed her son. “Let’s count the years, you could possibly be there in 2028.”
Monique’s prognosis seems reasonable during the summer of 2021. Wilson would be only 20 years old when he competes in the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, still in his athletic prime but within the Olympic window for track stars.
Only three years have passed since that time on the couch. Wilson is 16, and he is already an Olympian. The wunderkind is the youngest male track athlete to ever make the United States Olympic Team.
“[My mom] didn’t expect things to come so fast, and neither did I,” Wilson told NBC Olympics. “I have always watched the Olympics. “It’s been my dream since I first started running track.”
“So, when I put on this Team USA uniform, I’ll wear it with pride. Because it is simply unheard of at the age of 16.”
It is unheard of. Wilson’s Olympic selection breaks the age record set by distance runner Jim Ryun at the 1964 Tokyo Games.
Chasing the Dream
Quincy Wilson may be young (the iPhone precedes him by a whole year), but he’s no track beginner.
By the age of 15, he had already won five Junior Olympics. Wilson is a 400m and 500m phenom who attends the Bullis School in Potomac, Maryland, the same school that produced Masai Russell, this year’s U.S. Trials champion in the women’s 100m hurdles event.
In January, he ran the second-fastest 500m race in US high school history. He outperformed himself in March, breaking the under-18 world record in the indoor 400m.
The one-upmanship peaked in June, when the young Wilson, dwarfed by his grown-man opponents, made his debut to the world at the United States Olympic Track and Field Team Trials.
Wilson attended Trials in Eugene, Oregon, but he wasn’t just glad to be there. Wilson, along with Noah Lyles, Grant Holloway, and Quincy Hall, were there to make the U.S. Olympic team. They had all texted Wilson advice the week prior.
Wilson arrived at the American track and field paradise known as “Track Town, USA” with a clear mindset: it’s simply running.
“I told myself, ‘It’s just a normal race,'” Wilson explained. “It is anybody’s race. Everyone puts on their shoes in the same way. Everyone starts the same way. Everyone gets into the blocks in the same way.”
“At the end of the day, all you have to do is run your best. So I just did my best and got the results I wanted.”
Wilson’s results created history.
Wilson finished the men’s 400m first round in 44.66 seconds. That shattered a 42-year-old under-18 world record.
It lasted only 50 more hours. In the semifinal, Wilson shaved 0.7 seconds off his time to advance to the final, putting the Maryland native within grasp of an unexpectedly early Olympic berth. Wilson needed to finish in the top three in the final to compete against Olympic gold medalists such as 27-year-old Bryce Deadmon, 26-year-old Michael Norman, and 32-year-old Vernon Norwood, who is twice his age.
Bryce Deadmon (right) wins heat two of the men’s 400m semifinals at the United States Olympic Track & Field Trials, while Quincy Wilson finishes third.
Wilson may have been frightened by the high stakes. “I didn’t really have too many nerves, to be honest.”
Guess not. Wilson kept his cool and finished sixth in the final with a time of 44.94 seconds. While that wasn’t enough to make the 400m Olympic team, Wilson’s top-six result qualified him for selection to the men’s relay.
Realizing the dream.
Six days later, 3,000 miles from where he had raced into history, Wilson was back home in Maryland. It was Sunday night.
Wilson, like practically every other 16-year-old in the globe, had yet to compete in an Olympics. But he knew he was close. He was due to receive a call from USA Track & Field officials between 9:00 and 10:00 p.m.
Wilson was still waiting at 10:00 a.m., with no phone contact. At 11:00 p.m., as bedtime approached, there was still no call.
“I was like, ‘Well, I guess I didn’t make it,'” Wilson recalls.
At 11:30, Wilson’s agent called. He picked up. He could hear the Olympic theme song’s renowned drumbeats on the other end of the telephone.
Quincy Wilson was an Olympian. He dashed into his mother’s room, leaping up and down, and gave her a huge hug. His sister, Kadence, heard the ruckus and dashed inside to join the hug. His father, Roy, did as well. It did not take long for a Wilson family mosh pit to form. They were all headed for Paris.
“In that moment, you can’t really believe it,” Wilson said. “You don’t understand what you just did.”
This has been my childhood dream. But I am still a small child.
Wilson’s mind struggled to make sense of what was going on. So he decided to play some video games.
He stayed up until 3:00 a.m., honing his other craft—he’s an expert-level Call of Duty and NBA 2K player with a Twitch following—and feeling grateful. That was when his new reality set in.
“It just randomly hit me,” Wilson said. “I am an Olympian. It’s simply great to be able to say that.”
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