He may be the youngest male track and field Olympic gold medalist ever, but Quincy Wilson won’t stop talking about his anatomy class.
“I like studying the muscles and knowing the way my body works,” Wilson, 16, told NBC News. “I have a lot of things that I need to track like dorsiflex in my foot. I need to know how I’m putting my foot down in the ground, how I’m going to be able to get fast.”
Wilson, a junior at the Bullis School in suburban Washington D.C., is already plenty fast. During the summer, he broke the under-18 world record in the 400-meter dash that stood for 42 years. That time lasted just one day — when he broke it again.
He later competed as a member of the 4x400 relay team that took top honors in the Paris Games.
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Yet, on this frigid afternoon, days removed from Thanksgiving, Wilson wasn’t focused on his track accomplishments. Wearing a blue sweater with “Bullis” across the chest and khaki pants, he stood by a desk and explained a newly-finished mannequin he built of the body’s nervous system. A few feet away sat a mask Wilson made showing the anatomy of a human face.
His teacher Duruhan Badraslioglu, known to students as “Dr. B,” smiled broadly as Wilson shared what he’s learned in the class.
“He wants to make sure that his brains, his academic performance, is seen,” Badraslioglu said. “He’s an ‘A’ student, and all his lab peers will tell him that he carries his own weight. He doesn’t rely on other kids, and his assignments are always well-researched, very genuine and sincere. He puts in the effort. He wants to learn and that is a big deal.”
Wilson’s situation is unlike that of almost any other Olympian in history. While the 4x400 medal-winning relay team is primarily made up of professional runners — including Vernon Norwood, who at 32 is double Wilson's age — the high schooler still has almost two years of coursework and exams awaiting him before graduation.
He also has one big decision: Accept a scholarship at one of the many college track programs vying for his talents or turn pro ahead of the 2028 Los Angeles Games?
For many, trying to balance an athletics career with maintaining a 4.0 GPA would be daunting. Not for Wilson, who says his busy schedule helps more than it hurts.
“I can actually enjoy lunch with my friends, go out there and talk, and I don’t have to think about track all the time,” he said. “I feel like track is a mental sport, and if you’re thinking about it all the time, that’s where you start getting messed up in the head.”
A star is born
At the Olympic trials last June, fans entered the gates at Hayward Field at the University of Oregon to see stars such as Noah Lyles, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, Gabby Thomas and Sha’Carri Richardson. They left talking about Wilson.
Shorter in height and much smaller in stature than his competitors, the 16-year-old stepped onto the track ahead of the 400-meter prelims looking much different than the older athletes around him. In a sea of Nike, Adidas, Puma and New Balance singlets, he wore a gray and black “Bullis” track outfit.
And then he set the running world on fire.
Wilson ran a 44.66, breaking a record set by Darrell Robinson in 1982. One day later in the semifinal, he did it again with a 44.59 time that earned him a spot in the final. He trailed three runners on the final stretch but did enough to close the gap.
Ato Boldon, an Olympic silver and bronze medalist in 1996 and 2000, respectively, called Wilson “phenomenal” on the NBC Sports broadcast.
“There are a lot of us that felt maybe he ran too fast in the first round,” Boldon said. “This confirms this kid is a serious player. He came off the turn with work to do and work he did. These are grown men he’s running down!”
Wilson finished sixth place in the final two days later but his 44.94 was enough to get him on the U.S. Olympic 4x400 relay pool. He traveled to Paris with the team and found out he would lead off the first heat with Norwood, Bryce Deadmon and Christopher Bailey.
Quincy Wilson and his family were hyped for the men's 4x400m relay gold.
— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) August 11, 2024
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He told NBC News that he suffered a hamstring injury almost immediately after being named to the squad but that it wasn’t going to stop him from running on the world stage.
“I didn’t come out there for nothing. I didn’t come out there to watch,” he said. “I’ve been training all my life for this, so I was just like, ‘Why not step on the track and give it all you got? You never know if you can have this opportunity again.’”
With all eyes on him, he ran a 47.27, far from his personal best. Maybe the injury got to him. Maybe it was the nerves. But strong times by his teammates got the U.S. into the final where Norwood, Deadmon, Bailey and Rai Benjamin claimed gold.
When Benjamin crossed the finish line in front of 200-meter gold medalist Letsile Tebogo of Botswana, Wilson screamed from the stands. Despite not running the final, his earlier contributions were enough to earn hardware — and the title of the youngest male track and field gold medalist ever.
“I didn’t know it was going to be as heavy,” Wilson jokes of the medal. “When I put it around my neck, tears almost came down my eyes. Last year, sitting in this school, I wouldn’t even think that I would be in the Olympics getting a gold medal. Knowing that I am a gold medal Olympic champion, the youngest to ever do it, means a lot.”
It now sits in a case in his family’s dining room. Right next to the table where he does homework.
A future outside track and field
Wilson says he wakes up every day around 5 a.m. and hops on the bus at 6 a.m. It then takes close to an hour and a half to get to Potomac from his home in Prince George’s County.
Despite the long commute, he says it’s worth it because Bullis — one of the top-ranked private schools in the D.C. area — provides what he’s looking for both athletically and academically.
Wilson is taking English III, precalculus, anatomy and physiology, U.S. history and explorations in photography. But the one subject that he’s loving right now is engineering, an area he hopes to major in during college.
The school offers an advanced course licensed by the University of Texas-Austin. It’s entirely project-based, and earlier this year the students designed a pinhole camera for people with limited hand dexterity. Right now, the current unit is reverse engineering. Wilson and his classmates were given a hand-powered flashlight that they had to redesign and improve after conducting customer interviews.
Taryn Kittel, Wilson’s teacher, says she “couldn’t really ask for much more” from a student.
“There’s no sense of ‘let me just coast by here because I can.’ He seems to be here because he likes learning and has interests outside of what he does on the track,” she says. “He sets a really good example for all of our students that you can absolutely excel at multiple things. And if you didn’t know, you would have no idea that he is a gold medal athlete.”
Oh, and something else stands out to her.
“This is a weird thing,” Kittel jokes. “He has the best handwriting I’ve ever seen.”
Once school ends at 3:05 p.m., Wilson gets changed for track. The team then practices from 3:45 p.m. until 6 p.m. each weekday.
His main event is the 400-meter but coach Joe Lee says Wilson will compete in the 300-, 500- and 600-meter during the indoor season.
So far, so good.
Wilson, who turns 17 on Jan. 8, ran the 600-meter in 1:17:19 at the 2024 U.S. Marine Corps Holiday Classic in New York on Dec. 29. It is the second-fastest indoor performance in high school history.
Lee says Wilson will feel more pressure — both in high school and pro meets — because of what he accomplished during the summer.
“No one wants to lose to the teenager, the high school kid. So we’re familiar with that. We’re comfortable with it,” he said. “And when you have some of the best runners literally in the world who are trying to take you on and beat you, it puts everything in perspective. He’s going to give his best no matter what. So he’ll have a little bit of a target on his back but that’s good for him.”
Lee said the one area in which Wilson has improved the most is actually off the track. When he joined the team as a freshman two years ago, he was very quiet. That has since changed as he’s become more of a vocal leader.
“I think the kids don’t just listen to him because of his success, they listen to him because of his humility and his character. That’s really important,” Lee said. “He’s not out there saying, ‘Hey, I know what I’m talking about because I ran against Quincy Hall, the Olympic gold medalist, and I have an Olympic gold.’ He doesn’t present himself that way.
“He presents himself like he wants everybody to be better. He’s always encouraging, high-fiving, joking. He’s got a great sense of humor, and I think that resonates not just with his teammates, but with people because you always want to see a level of humility with your heroes.”
Wilson will compete in indoor and outdoor track this year and has his sights set on the U.S. championships in late July. He also could decide which college to attend. So far, he’s visited Georgia, Tennessee, Texas A&M and Texas Tech, with more lined up in the coming months.
He joked that his relay partner Norwood calls him every day to “remember to keep LSU in there.”
No matter where he decides to go, everything is geared toward competing at the L.A. Olympics in 2028. By then, he’ll be entering his prime at 20 years old with more experience under his belt. Like Lyles, McLaughlin-Levrone, Thomas and Richardson, he is expected to be one of the faces of Team USA.
Wilson says that’s the plan — but not his only focus.
“Athletics isn’t guaranteed. I could walk out of this room right now and something goes wrong. But the one thing that nobody can ever take away from me is my brains and my knowledge,” he said. “Track isn’t going to be there forever. Regardless of how successful your career goes, you need to have some type of education and degree so that you can excel in this world."
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