Quincy Wilson Wins COROS MileSplit50 AOY

Jul 05, 2024

The 'Quincy' effect began happening in March.

First, it was at the indoor national championships in Boston when Quincy Wilson, the 16-year-old Bullis School standout, took down a 20-plus year record at 400 meters, becoming just the second prep athlete in history to go under 46 seconds.

Then it followed at the Penn Relays in April when he rose to the occasion and split two straight 44-second splits in 4x400 races in Philadelphia.

He showed up for the outdoor national championships in June, also in Philadelphia, and ran the seventh-fastest 400m of all-time, clocking in at 45.13 seconds.

With every rep his reputation grew, and with every introduction so would his fan following. That all swooned at the U.S. Olympic Trials when Wilson put together a series of races for the history books, clocking times of 44.66, 44.59 and 44.94 en route to his selection into the U.S. Olympic relay pool.

"Coming in and running in the nation's biggest final, I couldn't be more ecstatic," Wilson said after finishing sixth in the men's 400m final at the U.S. Olympic Trials. "At the end of the season, I wasn't even thinking about making it to the biggest final in America."

This time, he took down a 42-year-old high school national record and captured a world U18 mark along with the ride.

For his outdoor efforts this spring and summer, we're naming Wilson our COROS MileSplit50 Athlete of the Year.

His win marks his second straight time that an athlete swept the indoor and outdoor awards, following Montverde Academy's Issam Asinga in 2023.

Just a cursory glance at Wilson's outdoor season shows immense dominance.

He ran a variety of distances, including the 100m, 200m, 400m and even the 800m, and across those competitions he won six of his eight races (most being high school finals, a few being prelims at the Trials). The only high school race he came up short was in the 100m at the East Coast Elite Meet with a wind-aided 100m time of 10.74w.

Of course, Wilson's real stature was in the 400m, where he ran no slower than 45.20 and clocked in-season times of 45.19, 45.17, 45.13, 44.94, 44.66 and 44.59.

Without question, Wilson executed on the best 400 meter season in high school history, surpassing legends like Darrell Robinson, Justin Robinson, Jamal Walton, Tyrese Cooper, Obea Moore, Michael Norman and Aldrich Bailey.

"Three 44s in one week," Wilson said after his trials final. "I think that's pretty good."

The cherry on top, though, may have been the 800m, where Wilson somehow was able to record the 27th-fastest time in the nation at 1:50.44, doing so at the Beach Run Invitational.

Wilson achieved all of these feats, remarkably, at the ripe age of 16, giving air to the idea that he could be building into one of our future U.S. stars.

Wilson signed with William Morris Endeavor, an entertainment, sports and fashion agency, in June, and he commented this season that WME will mostly handle his NIL opportunities.

But that should also give a sense into the potential and opportunity of Wilson, who's unlike most high school stars of recent years.

Maybe the only apt comparison is Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, who reached the Olympics at 17, blossomed into a star and soon became one of America's most accomplished track and field athletes.

Wilson's journey has only begun.

His next stop is the Olympics.