The women’s 4×100 relay final at the 2023 World Athletics Championships in Budapest took place nearly two years ago, but the race still seems fresh in the minds of fans. Team USA, consisting of Tamari Davis, Twanisha Terry, Gabby Thomas, and Sha’Carri Richardson, captured the gold medal in an electrifying 41.03 seconds, but behind the scenes, there were decisions and insights that few fans knew of until now.

Just recently, Team USA’s former relay head coach Mechelle Lewis Freeman shared the facts behind that victory on X. “Featured in the Nike 2025 Super Bowl commercial. Went viral-hundreds of millions of views,” she wrote.

The race was so memorable that Nike’s “So Win” campaign for the 2025 Super Bowl included a clip of Richardson’s finish, alongside clips of other female sports stars like Caitlin Clark, Jordan Chiles, A’ja Wilson, Sabrina Ionescu, and Sophia Wilson.

Even on YouTube, just four months back,  the official World Athletics account uploaded the video of that relay final, garnering 1.3 million views as of December 2025.

Freeman also shared an important behind-the-scenes decision: “I made a day-of order change trusting the athletes. We broke the World Championship record.” In case you didn’t know, Team USA replaced two runners who ran in the heats, Melissa Jefferson and Tamara Clark, with Gabby Thomas and Sha’Carri Richardson for the final. That switch ended up being an inspired decision.

Team USA’s run set the new championship record of 41.03 seconds, beating a record that had stood since 2011. But that wasn’t all. Freeman added, “I was verbally attacked by a coach in public.” Details about the incident have remained scarce,  but in 2025 she offered a few glimpses of the way she frequently felt disrespected offstage.

Why did a coach with such a stellar record resign?

Mechelle Lewis Freeman had coached the US women to 4×100 gold at the 2022 World Championships, 2023 Worlds and 2024 Olympics.  Yet her role as Head Women’s Relay Coach ended on February 26, 2025, when USA Track & Field chose not to extend her contract into the next cycle. So why wasn’t her contract renewed?

In early 2025, USA Track & Field reorganized its High Performance Department, creating a new leadership and coaching structure. As part of that shift, both national relay coaches, Freeman and the men’s relay coach Mike Marsh, were let go. This wasn’t about one race or a single mistake; it was part of a broader structural change.

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Even at that time, Freeman gracefully shared a farewell message: “My time as the USATF Head Women’s Relays Coach has come to an end. Thank you to my family and to those who believed in me. Thank you, Lord, for choosing me to show the world how to WIN against it all. To the athletes keep making history and much love. ❤️”

But several months later, she opened up about the difficulties she faced: “Here we are: The DISRESPECT I had to deal with behind closed doors is finally being spoken out loud. Imagine only winning GOLD MEDALS back to back to back being the best in the world and having people claim you ‘aren’t a coach.”

Freeman also posted a video clip of coach Holloway making a harsh remark, “We need to hire people that understand the sport… Mike or Michelle aren’t coaches… So you can’t coach your relay when that’s not your job, right?”

For Freeman, who had led her teams to multiple gold medals and world titles, this kind of undermining was exhausting. Imagine building a powerhouse program, only to have your expertise questioned at the highest levels. That was the reality she faced, and it ultimately drove her decision to step away.

After Freeman’s departure, Darryl Woodson took over as the coach for the USA relay teams. Under Woodson, the women’s 4×100 relay again won gold at the 2025 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, finishing in 41.75 seconds.