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SAINT-DENIS, France — No issues with this men’s relay team.
The quartet of Christopher Bailey, Vernon Norwood, Bryce Deadmon and Rai Benjamin completed the four laps around the track in an Olympic-record 2:54.43 to claim U.S. gold in the men’s 4×400 relay for the fifth time in the last six Olympics.
Benjamin, the gold medalist in Friday’s 400-meter hurdles, began the anchor leg with a lead and fought off Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo — the 200m gold medalist — at the finish line.
Botswana took silver with a time of 2:54.53. Great Britain took the bronze in 2:55.83.
One night earlier, the 4×100 relay team — featuring some of the fastest men in the world — squandered their chance at gold. After getting disqualified for the first exchange happening out of the zone, American sprint legend Carl Lewis demanded an overhaul of the relay program, which hasn’t won a medal in the 4×100 since 2004 or a gold since 2000.
Rai Benjamin holds off Letsile Tebogo to anchor Team USA to gold in the 4x400m relay! #ParisOlympics
📺 NBC & Peacock pic.twitter.com/MhJbrRH43D
— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) August 10, 2024
But those problems don’t extend to the other relay. (Of course, the handoffs are far less intense when you have an entire lap to run.) The men’s 4×400 relay has been contested now in 26 Olympiads. America has won 19 of them, including nine of the last 11.
The 400-meter runners aren’t the most glorified of America’s sprinters. Their names aren’t on the marquee of USA Track and Field. But they’re gold medalists and record holders. They’ve consistently gotten the job done.
The Paris Games proved to be no different.
The United States finished third in the prelims, when 16-year-old Quincy Hall took the leadoff spot and became the youngest male track and field athlete to compete in the Olympics. Wilson didn’t put up a fast time, and the Americans trailed because of it. But he got valuable experience as one of the prodigies in track and field. With Bailey in the opening leg, the U.S. was second when he handed the baton to Norwood.
Norwood ran a 43.30 and handed to Deadmon, who pushed the U.S. to the front entering the final 400. And Benjamin — as he did in Tokyo, and in the 2023 World Championships, and in the 2019 World Championships — brought home the gold for the third consecutive Games.
Required reading
- Paris Olympics 2024 live updates: Day 15 latest with track and field, women’s golf final round
- What to watch at Olympics today: Women’s soccer, men’s hoops — and 37 other gold medal events
- Grant Holloway gets his Olympic redemption, then unloads about what’s still missing
(Photo: Hannah Peters / Getty Images)
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Marcus Thompson II is a lead columnist at The Athletic. He is a prominent voice in the Bay Area sports scene after 18 years with Bay Area News Group, including 10 seasons covering the Warriors and four as a columnist. Marcus is also the author of the best-selling biography "GOLDEN: The Miraculous Rise of Steph Curry." Follow Marcus on Twitter @thompsonscribe
