The U.S. men’s and women’s relay teams are leaving Paris with a pair of thrilling victories. For the women, Shamier Little, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, Gabby Thomas and Alexis Holmes got the job done in the 4×400 relay. Little took the first leg and handed the baton to McLaughlin-Levrone, who built a sizeable lead for the U.S. The gap continued to Thomas showed off her blazing speed on the third leg. Holmes then took it the rest of the way.
“We got the real quarter horses,” Little said, per ESPN. “We really do. And it’s amazing to be part of history, and to kind of add on to that. To see the dominance lay before you, and then fall in line with that.”
McLaughlin-Levrone, who normally runs the last leg, was clearly prepared to take on a different role.
“It was kind of a joint decision between me and the coaches,” McLaughlin-Levrone said, per ESPN. “We all knew it was going to look a little unconventional, but we knew that if we did our parts we were going to be fine.”
The U.S. women finished the relay with a time of 3:15.27, four seconds ahead of second-place Netherlands. With their dominating win, the women set a new American record and narrowly missed the Olympic record.
The U.S. men finished with a time of 2:54.43 in a much closer race. Rai Benjamin took the anchor leg and managed to stay ahead of Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo.
“It was probably my most calculated anchor leg that I’ve ever run, since I’ve been anchoring this relay the past couple years,” Benjamin said, per ESPN. “I couldn’t get out too hot, and I couldn’t get out too slow. Because the kid [Tebogo] runs a 19.4 [in the 200]. And you just don’t play around with people like that that run 19.4.”
Chris Bailey, Vernon Norwood and Bryce Deadmon rounded-up the rest of the team. Norwood showed gratitude for 16-year-old Quincy Wilson, who took part in the preliminary race a day earlier.
“I wanted to run for Quincy because he put out a significant amount of effort for us [Friday] and that gave me a lot of motivation to try to do my best out there,” Norwood said, per ESPN.
The U.S. took a total of 34 track medals at the Paris games. That total includes 14 golds.
