After Epic 2024, Olympic Hero Rai Benjamin Looks Ahead to 2025

Rai Benjamin had a 2024 season for the ages. The 27-year-old American went undefeated on the year, winning the Olympic 400m hurdle gold in the process, and ran the fastest time in the world (46.46) twice — at the Olympic Trials in June and the Olympics in August where he won the gold over Karsten Warholm. He ended his year running the anchor leg for the United States at the Olympics in the 4×400. He blitzed a 43.13 split to bring Team USA the gold over Botswana and Letsile Tebogo in a race for the ages. The victory preserved Benjamin’s perfect record on relays as a pro as he also anchored Team USA to 4×400 gold at the 2019 Worlds, 2021 Olympics, and 2023 Worlds.

LetsRun.com spoke to Benjamin remotely last month from the Global Athletics media summit in Las Vegas and the full talk is on this week’s LetsRun.com Track Talk Podcast, available here or on your favorite podcast player.

We have highlights of our talk below and didn’t include the part where Benjamin outlines his unorthodox plans for 2025, where he will be splitting time across Los Angeles. His hurdle coach, 2024 USATF coach of the year Joanna Hayes, is now at UCLA, and his sprint coach Quincy Watts is still at USC. Benjamin will continue to work with both of them.

Benjamin after 4×400 gold in Paris (Kevin Morris photo)

How Does He Feel About His Epic 2024?

Rai: It’s been a crazy two months to three months since, but it’s been a good kind of crazy. But circling back to that moment, I mean, it was just insane to be in that environment and be in that situation and see everything unfold and, and know like, ‘Oh my gosh, like this is, it’s happening. Like we got to lock in here and get the job done.’ But it’s been good.

LetsRun.com: What’s it like taking the baton as the anchor leg and you’ve got a country of  320 million relying on you? Do you think about that?

Rai: Oh, yeah. That latter piece…I just got to do my job. And maybe towards the end, you start thinking like, ‘Oh shoot, let’s not screw this up for the rest of the guys and get walked on on national television in front of the entire world.’

The first part is definitely just do your job.

And that’s something that we emphasize. You know, before going out in team meetings, is everyone just get to stick around, do your job. And if everyone does their job, we win.

LetsRun.com: Well, you definitely did your job.

You already had the one [relay] gold medal from Tokyo, but is it much different this time around because the 4×4 was so dramatic and does the individual goal make people perceive you differently? Is it much different this time around?

Rai: I would say yes, slightly. I get recognized more than I normally would…it’s kind of trippy…cause sometimes you don’t associate yourself with doing anything of major relevance outside the track world, but it goes to show where track & field is heading and the amount of eyes and attention that it brought during these past Olympics.

It’s been pretty good. And the performances definitely helped a lot, especially in the 4×4, I think a lot of people were really impressed by that one.

That 4×4 Anchor (and his desire to run a different leg)

LetsRun.com: Did you know you had a 43.1 [split]?

Rai: It’s so funny. After I got done, we were doing the victory lap. I asked [Matt McCarron of Global Athletics] what was my split? He said 43.1. I was like, what the hell? I didn’t even expect it to be that [fast] cause it didn’t even feel that fast, but we were running, man.

LetsRun.com: Fred Kerley was on the Justin Gatlin podcast, and [he named his] all time 4×4 team, you were on it… He was like, the guy delivers.

Rai:  I’m happy to have that trust among everyone. I would prefer to run second, to be honest with you. But whatever they need me to do, like, I’ll definitely do it. And they needed me on anchor for this one. And although I wanted to run second, I was like, ‘I got you guys. Don’t even worry about it.’

LetsRun.com: Why second? Anchor is the glory leg.

Rai: Anchor’s the glory leg, but I just want the split, man…I think on the second leg…you naturally get a faster split…because you’re slingshotting off that turn and you’re running on a tangent to 200.

So you’re able to get a crazy split on second leg. And I definitely felt that if I was on that second leg and in the situation we’re in, I would have split 42 seconds and that’s really what I wanted to do is split a 42… But Quincy [Hall] went down and then things kind of shifted around and Michael [Norman] went down as well too.

So, and then it was just like, all right, like we got to actually build a 4×4 here that like makes sense that can match everyone else.

Plans for 2025: The 200?

LetsRun.com: I remember speaking to you in Las Vegas a couple of years ago, and you said your aim was to win the gold medal in the 400-meter hurdles, which you’ve done.  And [then] you  said you were moving to the 200. Are  you sticking in the 400 hurdles? What’s happening here?

Rai: I think I’m going to stick with the 400 hurdles. It’s so funny how things just pan out after a while, but it would be fun to go and dabble in the 200 a bit. I think we’re just kind of in the next phase of what we want to do with the event and just trying to push the boundary a little bit more I think. Last year was just about winning and not so much about necessarily focusing on running a specific time. I just have hated over the past couple of years, like focusing on running certain times. But I think for me now it is just kind of pushing the boundary and like seeing how efficiently and how much faster I can run.

Rai Benjamin getting his 400 hurdles Olympic gold in Paris (Kevin Morris photo)

Cause I definitely had a lot left in the tank during that final and it was just about running smart and running my best race. So, I think next year definitely, I’ll stick with the 400 hurdles and try to expound upon like what I did this year and and and be a lot better.

Thoughts on Grand Slam Track

LetsRun.com: 2025 is the debut of Grand Slam Track… There is one 400-meter hurdle/400 spot left (LRC update: Caleb Dean was announced as the final 400H/400 man on Thursday). I feel like that’s an easy, I don’t know, $400,000 or $500,000 for you if you want to take it. Is that appealing to you?

Rai: I’m gonna be honest. I don’t really like the format…it’s a lot of racing very early given the year, how long next year is going to be. We’ll see. We’ll see. But as for now, I don’t think so. And it is a lot of other moving parts too as well. It starts next year and have you guys — I haven’t heard anything about a TV deal in all honesty. So it’s just like…I don’t know. I really don’t know. So that’s all I gotta say about that, to be honest. But I don’t think I will sign.

Athlete of Year Snub

LetsRun.com: You think you can get the world record next year?

Rai: We’ll see.

LetsRun.com: One last question. It’s about Athlete of the Year, because I saw the finalists were  announced and there were no  American [men]. Grant Holloway wasn’t there, you weren’t there. Are you offended by that? Are you okay with that? Do you not care? What do you think?

Rai: I don’t really care, to be honest… if you look at the body of work anyone has done this season…it’s like, whatever… the other guys are more than deserving…

I don’t really care to be honest. I think if you look at the body of work that anyone has done this season, I think Grant did a phenomenal job. The guy won [Indoor] Worlds, the Olympics, he did it all. I don’t know how the votes work to be honest with you, but I’m really not too offended. I’m not offended at all, to be honest with you. I wasn’t even expecting to be a nominee.

And I damn sure was not expecting to win it at all, but I saw this random fact that I scored like 1300 points [in the World Athletics scoring tables] four times this year and just based off performances, I mean technically if we were considering the old world record of 46.7[8], I’ve run under that time quite a few times (4) this year. So for me, it’s like, whatever. I don’t really cry about that type of stuff. It’s all good. If I win, I win. If I don’t, it’s all good. The other guys are more than deserving and [Letsile] Tebogo had a great, great, great year, ran a phenomenal leg on the 4×4 and now did like something that’s never been done for his country.

So, yeah, it could have gone either way. I don’t really like hang my head up about that type of stuff.

LetsRun.com: A strong argument can be made for you.

Rai: I’ll just say, I don’t think a lot of people could run that anchor leg like I did. So I’ll just leave it at that. It was tough man. I’m telling you right now. It was like the hardest thing I’ve had to do in my track career.

LetsRun.com: I don’t doubt it. It was very impressive…Shout out to Botswana… for them to run that fast, that is sick.

Rai: I knew it was gonna play out that way and I was like, man this kid’s not playing around. He means business. But yeah, thank you guys.

Full talk with Rai Benjamin here or in the player below.