From Sha’Carri Richardson to Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone: The 5 Most Memorable Stories from the U.S. Olympic Trials

The U.S. Olympic track and field trials wrapped up Sunday, and Team USA appears poised to put in a productive showing at the 2024 Paris Olympics, which begin July 26.

With 48 combined events for men and women, the trials in June were full of storylines. Reigning Olympic 800m champion Athing Mu crashed during the trials, costing her a chance to defend her title. Three-time Olympian Lolo Jones attempted a comeback at age 41 and made it to the semi-finals of the 100m hurdles. After breaking her foot during the 2021 Olympic trials, which cost her a spot in Tokyo, heptathlete Anna Hall finally secured her spot at the Games after winning gold at this year’s trials.

But with less than a month to go until the track and field trials begin, Andscape is taking a look at the top five American stories coming out of the trials.

5. The high school phenomenon. The only headline you need to read about Quincy Wilson is this: the youngest American athlete to compete in an Olympic Games. After capturing the world’s attention on June 24 at the trials, the 16-year-old high school senior is headed to Paris as a member of the men’s 4×400 relay team. Wilson, who doesn’t yet have a driver’s license and has plans to create your own Twitch accountburst onto the scene after breaking the under-18 world record for the 400 metres at last week’s trials — twice. That record (44.69 seconds set by Darell Robinson in 1982) had stood for 42 years before Wilson ran 44.66 seconds in the first round of trials and 44.59 seconds in the semifinals. Wilson’s time of 44.94 seconds in the final put him in sixth place and out of the 400 metres race for Paris, but it was the third time he had finished under 45 seconds in three days and led to his inclusion in the relay group.

4. Can anyone catch Gabby Thomas? A bronze medalist in the 200 meters at the 2021 Tokyo Games and a silver medalist at the 2023 world championships, Thomas is already favored to win 200-meter gold in Paris, having held the two fastest times in the event this season, both at the Olympic trials. Should Thomas finish first in Paris next month, she would be the first American woman since 2012 (Allyson Felix) to win gold in the women’s 200 meters. That path has become easier because two-time defending Olympic champion Elaine Thompson-Herah of Jamaica will miss this year’s Games due to injury. But no matter: Thomas casually held her wrist and smiled after she ran a world-record 21.78 seconds in the women’s semifinal on June 28, proving that it could be just as easy for her at the Olympics. That is, unless McKenzie Long, an Ole Miss senior who held the third-fastest 200-meter time this season (21.83 seconds) when she won the NCAA championship in the event, has something to say about it.

3. The best thing is to do it. The only reason Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone isn’t a bigger American track star is because her event, the 400-meter hurdles, isn’t as sexy a race as the short sprints or relays. But know this: McLaughlin-Levrone is the best there is, the best there has ever been, and the best there will ever be in the hurdles. She set a world record in the hurdles in 2021 — 51.46 seconds — and has gone on to set records four times in the last three years. It’s not so much if McLaughlin-Levrone will win gold in Paris next month, but what will her time be if she wins? No woman has ever broken the 50-second barrier in the 400m hurdles, but with the way McLaughlin-Levrone has consistently pushed the bar in recent years, it could well happen. To further illustrate how gifted McLaughlin-Levrone is: she has the fastest 400m time and the sixth-fastest 200m time this season.

2. Can Noah Lyles make history? Perhaps the least remarkable thing about Lyles is that he’s the best sprinter in the world right now. His track record, no pun intended, speaks for itself. World leader in the 200 meters this season. Three-time reigning world champion in the 200 meters. America’s top male sprinter. But no, it’s Lyles’ antics and shenanigans that make him one of the most fascinating athletes heading into Paris. His big break came in 2023 when, after winning gold at that year’s world championships, he criticized the NBA Finals winners for calling themselves “world champions.” It sparked a feud with the American basketball players, who, when you think about it, were right. Now, a year later, Lyles is pulling out rare Yu-Gi-Oh! trading cards as he stands in the starting blocks before races and puffing out his chest after victories. Aside from a potential spoiler with Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson, who set the world’s best 100-meter time (9.77 seconds) at his country’s Olympic trials on June 28, Lyles could become the first American since Carl Lewis in 1984 to win the 100/200-meter double at the Olympics.

1. Sha’Carri Richardson is back. Richardson’s story is well-known. After winning first place in the 100 metres at the 2021 Olympic Trials, Richardson was banned from the 2021 Games after testing positive for THC. Richardson didn’t take her loss well: she lashed out at her critics on Twitter and had an embarrassing last-place finish in the 100 metres at the Prefontaine Classic in August 2021 against Jamaican sprinters Thompson-Herah, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Shericka Jackson. But after a two-year hiatus, Richardson returned with a comeback win over Fraser-Pryce and Jackson in the 100 metres at the 2023 World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary. Richardson followed up her comeback by winning gold in the 100 metres on June 24. Her fourth-place finish in the 200 metres, failing to qualify for Paris, was more due to circumstance than talent: she ran the second-fastest time in the preliminaries and the sixth-fastest time of the year, at 21.92 seconds, but she had already run five races before the 200 metres final. Richardson looks set to exact revenge on Jackson and Fraser-Pryce in the 100 metres in Paris, which, given her performances so far (she has run four of the world’s 11 fastest times this year in the 100 metres), makes her the favourite.