Within 20 minutes on Saturday, two Aggies brought some maroon and white flair to the gold medal stand at the 2024 Olympic Games.
Just after 9 p.m. in Paris, former Texas A&M track and field athlete Bryce Deadmon struck gold with Team USA’s men’s 4×400-meter relay. Not long after, Shamier Little picked up a gold medal with the USA’s women’s 4×400-meter relay. Both athletes claimed a silver medal on Aug. 3 with the mixed 4×400-meter relay.
Deadmon and the men’s team set an Olympic record with a time of 2 minutes and 54.43 seconds, nearly one second better than the previous record set in 2008. Deadmon teamed up with Arkansas’ Chris Bailey, LSU’s Vernon Norwood and USC’s Rai Benjamin.
Deadmon was third in the Americans’ rotation and completed his leg in 43.54 seconds. Benjamin secured the first place finish with the relay’s fastest leg in 43.18 seconds. Botswana and Great Britain finished with silver and bronze, respectively.
Little kicked off the women’s relay that finished in 3:15.27, an area record. Little opened the race with a leg of 49.48 seconds before Kentucky’s Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, Harvard’s Gabby Thomas and Kentucky’s Alexis Holmes finished it out. The U.S. finished ahead of the Netherlands and Great Britain, respectively.
Deadmon is the most decorated of Aggies competing in this year’s track and field events, having won a gold medal with Team USA’s men’s 4x400m relay and a bronze medal with the mixed 4x400m relay at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, when the event made its debut.
Deadmon competed for A&M from 2016 to 2021 and was a part of the program’s top 4x400m relay in 2019. Little was on the track for the Aggies from 2013 to 2016.
