“I gave it everything, so I’ll give it a 10.” When asked to rate his performance on a scale of 1-10, just minutes after he lowered his own 400m U18 World Record in 2024, Quincy Wilson had given himself full marks. If last year’s Holloway Pro Classic was a perfect 10, today was easily an 11. And that is because what he just did in Memphis was out of the ordinary! When faced with the challenge to go against a 29-year-old Tokyo Olympic gold medalist and 400m maven, Wilson proved, no hurdle is big enough for him. But how did he do that this time?

Well, when it was known that Quincy Wilson would be coming to the 2025 Ed Murphey Classic, everyone knew it was going to be a tough test to pass. Even though Wilson had been unbeaten in the 400m outdoors this season, facing a Tokyo Olympic gold medalist, Steven Gardiner, and two speedy rivals, Will Sumner and Bryce Deadmon, who have defeated Wilson in the past, looked difficult. But when D-Day arrived, it was Wilson who emerged at the top. And he didn’t just win, he won in world record time!

On Sunday, July 12, in the men’s 400m invitational finals, Quincy Wilson left all three of his mighty competitors in the dust. He finished first in 44.10s, whereas Steven Gardiner, the former 400m world champion, who was right at the back of the race for the first 30 seconds, suddenly stopped running right before coming off the final curve and entering the homestretch. While Gardiner stood still on the track with his hands on his knees, evidently struggling with something, it was Quincy Wilson who went on to take the win home….

And in doing so, the Bullis prodigy lowered his own personal best of 44.20s and shaved off 0.10s from his own U18 world record! It’s probably also a new American U18 400m record (the USATF records committee is yet to verify this). Now, just 3 weeks away from the US nationals, this is something, right? Moreover, this 400m time has now enabled Quincy Wilson to lower his U18 world lead from 45.27 to 44.10s this year. Also, if compared with the seniors, this would be the fourth fastest time this year, tied with Matthew Hudson-Smith’s Prefontaine Classic time!

By now, it’s hard to believe the number of times Wilson has lowered the U18 World record. Last year, he ran a 44.66s time at the U.S. Olympic trials round one and 44.59 in the semi-finals, both of which were credible U18 World record runs. It was after 42 years that anyone had lowered Darrell Robinson’s 400m U18 mark. And Wilson did it twice in three days. Later that year, he lowered it again to 44.20 at the Holloway Pro Classic. And now, in 2025, he’s breaking it for the fourth time. His reaction? “I went out there and shot out like a bullet!”

Well, doesn’t this call for celebration? It certainly does! However, while celebrations were underway after Quincy Wilson’s win, he couldn’t be part of it all, as one rule restricted him. What exactly happened? We’ll tell you!

Quincy Wilson’s celebrations faced a sudden twist

It’s a likely tradition at the Ed Murphey Classic that the winners are handed a bottle of champagne. But in Quincy Wilson’s case, this turned tricky because the athlete is just 17 years old, under the national minimum drinking age of 21. But just when the celebration was about to come to a standstill, Wilson’s coach stepped in!

Yes, Quincy Wilson’s coach saved the day for him off the track, while Wilson unveiled his magic on it. Coach Joe Lee, the Bullis High School head track and field coach, was the one who stepped in and accepted the bottle on behalf of the teenager and lived up to Ed Murphey Classic’s tradition. He popped open the bottle and sprayed the contents around, in the joy of Wilson’s world record win!

Interestingly, coach Lee has a story every time Quincy Wilson makes a junior world record. Last year, it was Lee who supported an upset Wilson, who had missed making it through the Olympic Trials, to give another attempt. When Wilson went to him and said, “I didn’t want to feel that feeling again,” the coach asked him to put in two weeks of work and show up at the Holloway Pro Classic. Well, that resulted in a world record! And this time, it’s the champagne moment! Their bond continues to fuel record-breaking moments—what do you make of this rising star-coach duo?