Taking place less than a year after the 2024 Paris Olympics, there will be no shortage of Olympians on the track for the 2025 Penn Relays. While all the Olympic Development events will be taking place on the third day of the competition, one Paris gold medalist will actually be competing on the first.
The Young Phenom
Quincy Wilson, a junior hailing from the Bullis School in Potomac, Md., first broke out in the track and field scene when he was just 14 years old. In 2022, the teenage phenom recorded his fifth Amateur Athletic Union Junior Olympic Games 400-meter after running the race in 47.77 seconds. By the time Wilson started high school, he had already garnered many accomplishments, including breaking the under-14 national record for the 400-meter that was in place for the last 30 years.
In his freshman year, Wilson won the New Balance Nationals Indoor title in the 400m with a time of 46.67 seconds. A month later, in his Penn Relays debut, Wilson ran a 45.06-second split as a member of the Bullis School’s 4 x 400-meter relay team. A year later, Wilson became a name to watch for. After an outstanding freshman year, Wilson showed that it wasn’t a fluke. He not only defended his Indoors 400m title but also set a new national high school indoor record, crossing the finish line in 45.76 seconds.
At the 2024 Penn Relays, Wilson put on a show, winning over the crowds with two sub-45-second splits as the anchor leg for the Bullis School. The first — in which he clocked the fastest high school 400m split ever recorded at the Penn Relays with a time of 44.37 — saw him catapult the Bullis School from seventh place to first in his heat to qualify for the High School Boys' 4x400 Championship of America. Despite splitting 44.69 seconds in the championship race, it was not enough to recover from a botched handoff earlier in the race.
In the lead-up to U.S. Olympic qualifying, Wilson claimed the outdoors 400m title as well, setting a New Balance Nationals Outdoors record with a time of 45.13 seconds on June 15. On day one of the Olympic Trials, Wilson set the outdoor under-18 boys world best in the 400m with a time of 44.66 seconds. He broke the record again two days later, when he ran 44.59 seconds in the semifinal.
While a sixth place finish in the finals excluded Wilson from the individual 400m team, he was selected to the men’s 4x400m relay pool. This made Wilson the youngest American track and field male Olympian in history and also made Wilson the youngest male athlete that the U.S. sent to Paris. There, Wilson ran in the qualifying heats. So when Team USA crossed the finish line first in the finals with an Olympic record time of 2:54.43, Wilson became the youngest Olympic gold medalist in track and field history.
Just Keep Running, Just Keep Running
After returning from Paris, Wilson hasn’t rested on his laurels.
Earlier this year in February, Wilson reset the high school national record while improving the under-18 world best time for the 400m, clocking in at 45.66 seconds. Later at the USA Indoor Track and Field Championships held in Staten Island, New York City from Feb. 22-23, Wilson finished in fifth — finishing 0.92 seconds behind Chris Bailey, who took home the gold.
Much like last year, Wilson once again defended his title in the 400m at the 2025 New Balance Nationals Indoor — setting yet another meet record in the process — lowering the time from 45.76 to 45.71 seconds. The result means that Wilson now owns the three fastest all-time boys indoor 400m times.
As such, Wilson and the Bullis School will be entering the 2025 Penn Relays as a must-watch event. In recent years, the Jamaican teams have largely dominated the 4x400m boys’ relays. Following the year that Wilson has had, all eyes will be on him to see if he can help his school break that streak and round out his trophy cabinet with his first Penn Relays championship watch.
Wilson and the Bullis School are slated to take to the track to compete in the 4x400m heats on April 24 at approximately 1:50 p.m. There, the team will look to punch in a ticket to the High School Boys' 4 x 400m Championship of America set to take place on Friday, April 25 at 3:50 p.m.
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