Paris Olympics: U.S. mixed 4×400-meter relay team sets world record

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PARIS — Before track and field got underway at the Paris Olympics on Friday, the members of the U.S. mixed 4×400-meter relay team openly discussed how fast a time they’d need to run just to make the podium.

“We talked about that it was going to take a record to win a medal,” Shamier Little said.

The Americans eclipsed the world record just like they hoped — just a day earlier than they expected. The quartet of Vernon Norwood, Little, Bryce Deadmon and Kaylyn Brown won their heat in a time of 3:07.41, smashing the previous record of 3:08.80 set when the U.S. won gold at the world championships in Budapest last year.

Norwood opened a narrow lead after the first leg of the race and his teammates kept increasing it. By the time Brown took the baton to run the anchor leg, the question wasn’t whether the U.S. would win the heat but how fast the time would be.

No one was more surprised than the Americans when the time flashed on the scoreboard.

“I didn’t think we was going to do that today,” Deadmon admitted with a smile.

The U.S. will enter Saturday’s mixed 4×400-meter final as a heavy favorite to take gold. None of the other teams that qualified for the final managed to break 3 minutes, 10 seconds.

The makeup of the mixed 4×400-meter relay team was a source of intrigue leading up to Friday because of the possibility that 16-year-old phenom Quincy Wilson could make his Olympic debut. Wilson is the world’s eighth-fastest man in the 400 meters this year and the third-fastest American. He earned his spot in the American relay pool when he ran three straight sub-45-second times at the U.S. Olympic Trials and then lowered his Under-18 world record to a blazing 44.20 seconds a few weeks later. In the end, U.S. men’s relay coach Mike Marsh opted for experience, selecting Deadmon to join Norwood in the mixed 4×400. Wilson will now have to wait to find out if Marsh tabs him to run a leg of the mixed relay final or the men’s 4×400-meter relay in the prelims on Aug. 9 or the final on Aug. 10.

The way the U.S. quartet ran on Friday, it’s hard to argue with the results. Now the Americans turn their attention to the final with a new goal in mind.

“Tomorrow,” said Norwood, “we hope to do it again.”