logo
ENع
#

Latest news with #QuincyWilson

Behind Quincy Wilson's Success Is An Unparalleled Drive For More
Behind Quincy Wilson's Success Is An Unparalleled Drive For More

Forbes

time23-04-2025

  • Sport
  • Forbes

Behind Quincy Wilson's Success Is An Unparalleled Drive For More

PHILADELPHIA—When Quincy Wilson sees a gap, insurmountable or not, his brain often tries to calculate the solution. Take last year, for example. Facing what seemed like impossible odds in the preliminaries of the Championship of America high school 4x400 at the Penn Relays, the teenager took the final hand-off and passed not one but five athletes on his way to a can-you-believe-it 44.37-second split, anchoring the Potomac, Maryland-based Bullis School to a spot in the finals. When it happened again a race later, his teammate this time falling on the second exchange, Wilson pulled out another 44-second split and willed his team to third-place. The experience felt supernatural to anyone who witnessed it in the stands—and no less because it came from a 16-year-old. But afterward, Wilson just kept flying higher and higher, first securing a world U18 record for 400 meters, to then being selected for the U.S. team headed to Paris, to next winning an Olympic gold medal in the Olympics. To Wilson, that can-do-attitude was simply a part of his makeup. 'I've always just tried to be the last one standing,' Wilson told me recently. 'I try to be the last one standing. Once I find the tactic, I just think to myself, 'If I can beat him on this leg, I'm going to stick to it.'' You can thank his family for that, because it was them who instilled the belief that he can do anything he puts his mind to, whether it's running 44 seconds in the 400 meters, to engineering designs in the classroom, to even winning board games at home. In fact, Wilson says that indefatigable spirit was partially born out of long Monopoly sessions growing up. 'After a while,' he said, 'I started to win because I stayed up.' This weekend, the now 17-year-old Wilson heads back to the Penn Relays a completely different athlete than he was a year ago, but with no less quit. And maybe this time he'll even get the redemption he covets in the 4x400. Maybe what's so unique about Wilson is that he doesn't look like a 400 meter superstar. Standing maybe just a shade over 5-foot-9, he doesn't tower over you. He's got a big smile and that Generation Z vibe, maybe a freshly cut fade every three to four weeks. You might find him wearing a bucket hat on a hot day. He also might be the next great American quarter-miler. Michael Johnson's 400 meter U.S. (and former world) record of 43.18 has stood since 1999. Will Wilson work his way up to it? Right now, his all-time best of 44.20 is No. 24 in U.S. history. It's a World U18 record and about four-tenths shy of the World U20 record of 43.87 seconds, which was achieved by American Steve Lewis in 1991. In June, Wilson finished sixth in the U.S. Olympic Trials at the tender age of 16. To do that, he ran under 45 seconds over three straight rounds. He ran his first sub-46 race two years earlier at the age of 15. And he's been going viral since he was an eighth-grader operating out of Chesapeake, Virginia. 'I feel like (my success) did come at a fast pace,' Wilson said, 'going straight from middle school, when I had that breakout year, to when I ran 47.5 as an eighth-grader. At Bullis, I don't even think he expected my freshman year to go the way that it went out.' To understand Wilson, who was born in New London, Connecticut, you need to know his family first. His father Roy was a running back in the Navy and commanded a submarine for over two decades before his retirement. His mother Monique, meanwhile, played NCAA Division II soccer for Barton College in North Carolina and later became a housewife. Wilson's drive to succeed comes from both of his parents, but it's his mother who's often given him a sense of direction. 'She says all the time, 'Stay focused,'' Wilson said. 'If she sees me doing something – if I'm on my phone watching Tik Tok and I don't answer – she'll say 'You're not focused.'' That guidance has served Wilson well, because it's allowed him to develop a sense of balance in a world that might easily pigeonhole him into a specific box. At the Bullis School, where Wilson is finishing up his junior year, he earns straight As and has earned no less than a 94 on his report cards at any time over his academic career. In the classroom, he's developed an interest in mechanical engineering – not to mention sports journalism. And in English class, where Wilson is a whiz with writing essays, he says his classmates tell him, 'I'm the Chat GPT.' Spend one minute listening to him describe this, and you'll begin to understand just how he's translated that success to the track. Wilson constantly seeks perfection. 'The feeling you get when you have a bad grade, I just can't live with that feeling,' he said. 'A lot of people say, 'Quincy, you can just go out there and just do anything in the classroom.' But I can't live with that feeling. 'I can't live with the bad feeling of not having the work done, or thinking about the work I didn't complete when I go to sleep. That's the type of person I am. I'll be thinking about it in my dreams if I don't complete it.' Late last year, after Wilson became an Olympian, performed on the world stage, and earned a gold medal for Team U.S.A., he started to emerge as one of the country's next great hopes. After all, he was the youngest track and field athlete to compete for Team USA. Traveling home afterward, he tried to manage the changing standards the best he could. 'Just trying to accomplish what I want to accomplish, and not worrying about what the outside has to say is a very big thing,' he said. Wilson knows today the spotlight has changed. Every race he's entered in, especially the ones with high schoolers, his name will be highlighted and bulleted and targeted. In situations where he's racing against high schoolers, Wilson is often mobbed by fans afterward – a recent incident in Virginia Beach saw Wilson and his team nearly toppled by a mass of fans following a performance in the 4x200. It doesn't mean he's immune to failure. 'Since I've grown up to be kind of a child star, I kind of realize that now people have expectations of me,' he said. Wilson, instead, has often challenged himself in situations outside his comfort zone. He raced at 500 meters in January and then 600 meters in February. Wilson finished both of those races outside first place. With each loss came equal, and possibly greater, understanding. Squaring off against professionals and Olympians at the New Balance Grand Prix in January, Wilson ran a career best 45.66 seconds for 400 meters indoors. Then in March, he followed up with his third straight national high school title at the distance. Wilson often uses setbacks to fuel him. 'Just coming in with confidence I think can be the best thing,' he said, 'because you have to attack those days you don't feel like going up that last hill … but knowing you had a purpose and a goal, I feel like you know where it got you.' Off the track, Wilson's been more protective of his inner-circle. His best friends at Bullis – Colin Abrams, Chris Tangelo and Javonte Williams – remain his closest allies. The foursome, all track athletes with big-time futures ahead, insulate one another and offer encouragement on the sometimes larger-than-life stage they're performing on. 'We try to live the moment the most we can,' Wilson said,' because we know that some of these opportunities we have may never come again.' And then there are other support systems, too. People you wouldn't quite expect. They're even located hundreds of miles away. Vernon Norwood lives and trains in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. But when the 33-year-old track and field Olympian and multiple-time gold medalist puts on his headset and turns on the television, he opens a different world. There, he'll find Wilson, who's quick to talk smack about his team on NBA 2K – Wilson plays with a character which resembles himself, only it can dunk and shoot 3s like an NBA player. 'It's like big bro, little bro,' Norwood said recently. '(Quincy) is a phenomenal athlete and it's rare to see that type of talent come around. So when you do, you want to nurture and develop it and make sure he can become the greatest.' In June, he met Wilson for the first time, and the pair immediately hit it off. 'He's a great friend, mentor, brother, anything you can say about him,' Wilson. A couple months later, while they were in Paris, Norwood acted as Wilson's chaperone anytime he had to leave the village – a rule in place for any athletes under 18 years of age. That bond remains today. Both are affiliated with New Balance, with Norwood sponsored by the brand as a professional and Wilson on an Name, Image and Likeness deal. 'I try to tell him, 'Keep the main thing the main thing,'' Norwood said. 'Being such a high profile person now, it will come with a whole lot. He has to stay grounded. You have to stay true to yourself and how you are … a lot of times, there are moments. And I say, 'Bro, just focus on the moments.'' Wilson will be one of the main attractions in Philadelphia this weekend. On Instagram, the high schooler has amassed over 388,000 followers and continues his ascent up the technicolor world of stardom. Everywhere he goes, he attracts attention – from pictures to videos and selfies. Coming off such a high-profile performance at The Penn Relays in 2024, the Maryland teenager enamored the largely Jamaican fanbase and welcomed the thought of an American team usurping the Jamaican dominance, which has held strong since 2007 in the 4x400 – in fact, the last U.S. team to win the division was Long Beach Poly. Of course, Bullis School will be arriving off a loss of their own. The team was taken down by Miami Northwestern High School in the final of the 4x400 at the Florida Relays in early April. Wilson, having won the 400 meters that day in 45.27, came up empty over the final 100 meters and was passed by Miami Northwestern's Tywan Cox – a football star headed to the University of Illinois. Perhaps it was all the ammo Wilson needed to re-charge and take flight again. Whatever situation that presents itself this weekend, he will be ready for the outcome. 'It's about how much you want it,' he said.

2024-25 Winter All-Met: Boys' indoor track first team, relays, honorable mention
2024-25 Winter All-Met: Boys' indoor track first team, relays, honorable mention

Washington Post

time04-04-2025

  • Sport
  • Washington Post

2024-25 Winter All-Met: Boys' indoor track first team, relays, honorable mention

The following student-athletes were selected to The Washington Post's 2024-25 All-Met team for boys' indoor track and field: Quincy Wilson, Jr., Bullis Fresh off winning an Olympic gold medal at age 16, Wilson returned to dominating the high school scene this winter to win this award for a second straight season. He beat his own under-18 400-meter indoor record at the New Balance Grand Prix in February with a time of 45.66 seconds while running alongside professionals. A month later, he repeated as the 400 indoor national champion at New Balance Nationals with a time of 45.71 seconds and was the anchor of the Bulldogs' record-breaking 4x400 relay team.

Why sport's fascination with aesthetically-perfect form is misguided
Why sport's fascination with aesthetically-perfect form is misguided

New York Times

time23-03-2025

  • Sport
  • New York Times

Why sport's fascination with aesthetically-perfect form is misguided

The message popped up on my phone: 'No one's saying he's not fast. He just looks… wrong'. A friend and I were talking about Quincy Wilson, who won the national 400m indoor high school title earlier this month, in a time of 45.71. After collecting his individual gold, he anchored Bullis to the 4x400m relay title with a 45.94 split. Their 3:09.44 time combined was a national record, making them the first high school to break 3:10 indoors. Advertisement Just six weeks prior, less than a month after his 17th birthday, Wilson had run 45.66 indoors to better his own under-18 'world best' and high school national record. Last June, outdoors, he produced an outstanding trio of sub 45-second 400m races over three days at the U.S. Olympic Trials. Wilson's 44.66 in the preliminaries was the fastest-ever outdoor performance by an under-18 male, only to go even quicker in the semi-finals (44.59). The final proved one step too far — he finished sixth in 44.94. Here is a teenager repeatedly breaking (his own) age-group records, 23rd on the U.S. men's all-time 400m list. You can count on two hands the number of American men who have run 400m faster since Wilson was born in January 2008 — nine. He is already an Olympic gold medallist, the youngest in track and field history, having led off in the 4x400m relay heats in Paris last August (poorly, by his standards, with a 47.27), before their big hitters came in for the final. So, what's the problem? Well, Wilson's gait is pretty unorthodox. He runs as Michael Johnson once did, leaning back but in an even more pronounced manner. His feet land so far in front that he always looks to be over-striding. The arm carriage is scrappy, with wide, straight arms that swing back so far that they surely cannot bring rhythm or carry tired legs through. Hence: 'he just looks… wrong'. But it works. The proof is in the records, the consistency of races and times, the maintained positive trajectory. Johnson, posting on X, formerly Twitter, said that his arm swing should be corrected because it will cause fatigue earlier. 'When to correct? Age, current results and difficulty of the change all should factor,' he added. 'He's young and already fast. Plenty of time!' Mechanics are a significant limiting factor and there are improvements for Wilson to make if he wants to one day break 44 seconds and enter the pantheon of 400m sprinters. Maybe that can wait for adulthood. Diamonds need cutting and polishing, after all. Advertisement The beauty of athletics is its indiscriminateness. Your performance is what the clock stops at, how high the bar is or the distance you throw the thing. There are no extra points for style — this is not diving, gymnastics or figure skating. Justin Gatlin, the most-decorated 100m male sprinter (three Olympic and five World Championship medals) spoke about Wilson on his podcast Ready, Set, Go. 'We always use perfect form instead of saying efficient form,' he said. 'Efficient can mean something totally different and it can work for that individual (for) how their body is structured.' It's illustrated in a YouTube video, where a smaller, female tennis player and a 6ft 5in, 295lbs American football player are running at 18mph. That speed equates to roughly 50 seconds for 400m — which is fast, unless you're Wilson. Watch it. Who 'looks' better? Humans are biased towards the tennis player. She is smaller, taking big(ger) steps relative to her size, with a faster foot turnover and higher heel-lift, which means her arm-swing is much quicker to match. The form bears a slight resemblance to the Looney Tunes character Roadrunner. Why the bias? From an evolutionary standpoint, humans like symmetry and balanced proportions. Facial symmetry is a predictor of attractiveness because symmetry is thought to reflect better genetic quality (and thus fewer mutations). Athletically, metronomic, mirrored form looks safer and more efficient. That is part of the problem. How something looks never should — but often does — matter more than how it works. This is to say that 'good form' is a misnomer. Form only becomes inherently bad when it causes injury, and the only good style is whatever works for the athlete. To pick some specific characteristics, no two athletes are going to have identical muscle constructions, bone densities, leg lengths, centres of gravity, tendon strength, foot-size or foot arches. Imagine the body and its characteristics as a series of puzzle pieces, and every single one can change — between athletes but also for the same individual across a career. The number of possible pictures is massive. Across sports and eras, there are too many examples of athletes with 'unconventional' form succeeding for 'good form' — whatever that is — to be truly necessary. A 2022-published paper, led by academics at Leeds Beckett University, analysed the 100m finalists at the 2017 World Championships. They found 'low to moderate asymmetry (to be) a natural phenomenon in elite sprinting. Performances were not related to their (symmetry) scores'. Advertisement Athletes had left- and right-side differences averaging at 30 per cent for touchdown (when the foot hits the floor) and 2.2 per cent for toe-off (as they push off). Usain Bolt, the best male sprinter of all-time — his 100m (9.58s) and 200m (19.19s) world records still stand nearly 16 years on — is the perfect example. His ground reaction forces (how hard his foot hits the track) are 13 per cent higher in his right leg, while his left leg stays on the floor 14 per cent longer. That compensation might owe to his scoliosis and the half-inch difference in leg length. Take Haile Gebrselassie, one of the greatest distance runners ever, with two Olympic and four World 10,000m titles. In 2008, he was the first man to run under the 2:04 marathon barrier (2:03:59, which broke his own world record by nearly half a minute). Gebrselassie was notorious for his arm swing — or lack of — which was a product of running 10km each day to school in Oromia, Ethiopia. While Gebrselassie's right arm swung normally, his left arm locked. 'Because it was in this hand that I carried my books,' he told The Guardian in a 2002 interview. It was something coaches tried and struggled to change with the Ethiopian. 'It was not possible for me to change it. Me and the style, we have grown together,' Gebrselassie said. Paula Radcliffe, the greatest female marathoner of the pre-super shoes era, is another former multiple world record holder with form that would never be coached. Her head used to bob and she swayed when she ran, especially deep in races. The same can be said for Priscah Jeptoo and Eilish McColgan. The former won silver medals in the marathon at the 2011 World Championships (Daegu) and 2012 Olympic Games (London). McColgan, daughter of former Olympian Liz, won 5,000m silver and 10,000m gold at the 2022 Commonwealth Games, and still holds eight British records on the road and track — for distances ranging from 5,000m/5km up to half-marathon. Advertisement Jeptoo and McColgan both flare their feet out when their legs swing back (McColgan's right leg especially), and tend to land with their knee bending inwards slightly — rather than a straight leg. The form resembles how other athletes run when fatigued, looks wasteful, and often, harshly, draws comparisons to Bambi on ice. McColgan addressed this in a social media post in 2023, listing some of the hurtful comments she has been sent next to a video of her running on the track. "Awful running style""Too skinny""Her form is too inefficient for road racing" "Will never improve""Getting too old" People are always going to doubt you. But keep working, keep believing & continue to smile! 😊 — Eilish McColgan (@EilishMccolgan) March 11, 2023 For field events, idiosyncrasies form an even bigger part of athlete identity, particularly in events with run-ups: see Greek long jumper Miltiadis Tentoglou and Australian high jumper Eleanor Patterson. Tentoglou, a double Olympic Champion and six-time European gold medallist, runs with hunched shoulders and a bobbing head. He won 12 of his 15 meetings in 2024, and only lost once in the first eight months of the year, winning World Indoor gold in early March and taking the Olympic crown in the summer. Patterson, who won World Championship gold in 2022 and Olympic bronze last August, makes a windmilling motion with her right arm (think David Beckham at free kicks) just before she jumps, with a left-footed take-off. Yet she is one of only 38 women ever to clear 2.02m. A survey of colleagues for examples in other sports of 'unconventionals' who have made it to the very top prompted an avalanche of responses. Four-time Tour de France winner Chris Froome had form on the bike that was frequently described as ugly. At 6ft 6in, Russian tennis player Daniil Medvedev hits fast serves but often plays from the back of the court. His range of shots is not as elegant as other players, and his success comes through consistency in rallies — he was world No 1 in 2022. In golf, Jim Furyk (2003 US open winner) and Scottie Scheffler (2022 and 2024 Masters winner), have unorthodox swings, the latter particularly when driving. Furyk never rotated much in the backswing phase while Scheffler's feet almost come off the floor as he drives the ball. Sri Lankan Lasith Malinga, with his 'slingshot' action, and Indian Jasprit Bumrah, are seam bowlers in cricket with unique techniques. Rather than bowl with a straight arm above the head, Malinga's arm comes out at an angle from the side, which he said came from learning to bowl initially with a tennis ball. He was the first bowler to take 100 Twenty20 international wickets in 2019, and was the first to take five hat-tricks across all international formats. Advertisement Bumrah, the ICC men's test cricketer of the year in 2024, takes a shorter run-up by seamer standards. Yet he still generates immense speed and consistently hits a good line and length. His right arm hyperextends as he bowls, releasing the ball from a lower, further forward point beyond the crease. It means he can create more backspin than others, enabling him to bowl with more variation (in delivery type with spin, and also changing angles against left- and right-handers). The examples are almost endless. Jordan Henderson has a knee-dominant running gait which reportedly prevented Sir Alex Ferguson signing him for Manchester United. He then played for Liverpool for over a decade, won every trophy there is to win, and has more than 80 England appearances, including going to six major tournaments. Likewise, watch James Ward-Prowse's hunched free-kick technique, which made him the Premier League's top dead-ball specialist for multiple seasons. In team sports especially, and interactive individual sports where athletes compete directly against each other (i.e. boxing), being unorthodox can be advantageous in making someone more unpredictable. With athletics, though, and sprint events especially, it is mostly about that athlete against the clock. Wilson's form can improve but, based on his current performances and progression over the past 18 months, there is nothing inherently wrong with it that needs immediately fixing. Rather, cognitive dissonance is needed and perceptions must change. We should stop overrating symmetry and balance and assess performances by how fast or how good they are, not how they look. (Header photo: Kirill Kudryavstev/AFP via Getty Images)

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store