Youth have a hard time keeping focus at the Olympics. He is not the first, nor will he be the last.
“Food had been scarce and when Zamperini went aboard the ship to the Berlin Olympics, he could not believe all of the food that was available to them. He ate the entire 14 days they spent crossing the Atlantic and by the time they landed overseas he had gained 14 pounds.” - from Unbroken
He’s going to have an Olympic Gold medal.
What do you have on your trophy shelf?
MeHereYouWhere?! wrote:
After a pretty awful 1st leg of the relay, when asked about his own performance, he admitted he "wasn't 100% myself". He declined to explain further, only saying, “There’s a lot of different things, but I’d rather not answer.”
14 days with no racing.
14 days in a foreign country
14 days eating strange food. Not every meal was in the Olympic Village.
no air conditioning... = poor sleep
Obvious right hamstring injury... see the KT tape as he takes the blocks
only 16 years old
We'll eventually get the story. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that he pulled his hamstring doing something stupid!
In the end, he got valuable experience and the US advanced to the finals.
That was stupid to put him in any Olympic race at that age with zero international experience. But I suppose even USA coaches have been spoiled with the “mind virus” of inclusion. We must get back to putting the best in place to represent us or we will be on the path of decline as a country.
By putting Wilson in that relay, the USA almost lost a spot in the finals. And could have given up a more desirable start lane. USA coaches have to get back to putting the best team out on the track and not trying to do something that’s gonna make for a cute feel good story.
Hows this for a quote:
"It's just the end of my season, not the end of my career."
"It's going to help me. I didn't run the race I wanted to. But now I know what it's like to be here and go through this kind of thing and have the pressure of sleeping in a dorm room and seeing your competition in the food halls. It's just practice and getting ready for the future."
"This wasn't my time. It just showed that this is not the time for me. Just being here is amazing."
Sydney McLaughlin in 2016 after running 56 in her race in the Rio Olympics.
asokjfdagngafdlkam wrote:
Could be anything. Could have been some kind of bad experience in the Village, bullying, etc. It could have been "first time away from home" nerves. It could have been that he was out partying constantly in Paris or chasing the ladies. It could be a lot of things. We'll never know.
He's too young to stay in the village
I mean, Quincy is only 16. Also, first they told the kid he made the relay team. Then his mom announced to the world that Quincy wouldn't be running the mixed relay at all. He probably just was mentally and physically turned off after thinking he wasn't going to run period. Then he had to hype himself back to run the men's 4 * 4. I remember a few times in high school being told by my coach I had to run a 4 * 800 or a distance medley leg without really knowing at all until the day before or the day of. I generally didn't do well because it was kind of out of the blue sometimes. I completely understand how you can just be shut off after thinking you're probably done for the meet, especially at 16. He's still great. He's still an Olympian no matter what. No one can ever take that away from him now. He will be fine going forward. This is a situation and lesson he needed to learn anyway. He will be better prepared next time and kill it when we need him to.
I said earlier to day - he certainly earned his spot in the pool, but it was still a dicey decision to actually use him. It doesn't matter now since USA managed to qualify, but running a 16 year old who has never been in a global adult championships might not have been the best move. I know on paper he's fast enough, but other than looking at his fastest time to reach that conclusion, maybe consider his average time over a bigger number of races. I don't think he quite has the resume of times to feel really comfortable running him. And of course he's 16 running against men and inexperienced on this stage.
But, it worked out, and he got the experience and the USA can run their A team in the final and hopefully not screw it up. Thank God for Vernon Norwood.
Who were they going to run today if not him?
I love how the keyboard warriors on this forum are trying to equate Quincy Wilson running in the Olympic 4 x 400 m as a 16 year old against Grown Men to be the same as the time they ran Anchor against Hatboro-Horsham in the 4 x 800 in 1997.
I think this was a great experience for him and he performed about as well as you would expect for the situation. Also, kudos to the other members of the Relay who supported him.
He will be back in other major championship meets and perform superbly well.
The big thing for me is at the very least Quincy did not drop the baton or botch the handoff. Faster grown men have done insanely wild stupid things that were far, far worse to completely put us out of competing at all. In the history of relays, this is pretty light stuff if you look back.
Then whys he out there? If the team knew he wasn’t right then it’s on them. If he knew and the team didn’t then it’s on his own selfishness. Hope the former. Shouldn’t have been out there.
whawha wrote:
Then whys he out there? If the team knew he wasn’t right then it’s on them. If he knew and the team didn’t then it’s on his own selfishness. Hope the former. Shouldn’t have been out there.
He's hurt, that much is pretty obvious. Or rather he's at least not 100%.
I assume the final is going to be some version of Benjamin-Norman-Bailey-Hall, and Deadmon and Norwood both ran it, so I guess it could have been Bassitt instead.
It seems a bit foolish not to have at least one more person there in the camp who could have stepped up.
I feel like we should have Norwood as the lead leg. He always gives us a decent lead and we probably need to run clean if we want to beat Botswana.
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We've screwed up the 4x4 relay as well
D-Run wrote:
I said earlier to day - he certainly earned his spot in the pool, but it was still a dicey decision to actually use him. It doesn't matter now since USA managed to qualify, but running a 16 year old who has never been in a global adult championships might not have been the best move. I know on paper he's fast enough, but other than looking at his fastest time to reach that conclusion, maybe consider his average time over a bigger number of races. I don't think he quite has the resume of times to feel really comfortable running him. And of course he's 16 running against men and inexperienced on this stage.
But, it worked out, and he got the experience and the USA can run their A team in the final and hopefully not screw it up. Thank God for Vernon Norwood.
The kid ran around 45 or under a half dozen times. Who in the US has a faster sequence that isn’t in the team?
what we don’t know is injury situation (i.e did he strain a hammy and was pulled from the mixed but they thought he wa recovered? Covid?) and what he was told (did he think his season was done after not getting the mixed call)? We are left guessing.
Experience is unlikely to be a factor. The pressure here isn’t more than the trials. My bet is on an minor injury/sickness but until someone talks, we are guessing
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