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SAINT-DENIS, France — With his arms in the air, his legs spinning and his face twisted into a grimace, Quincy Hall kept coming, even when he seemed hopelessly behind.
Hall finished a distant fourth in the 400-meter final at the Olympics, with no purple lane between him and the finish line.
With 50 metres to go, he sped past the fading former Olympic champion Kirani James. With 40 metres to go, he ran over Jereem Richards as if the Trinidadian’s shoes were made of cement. Only the pre-race favourite, Matthew Hudson-Smith of Great Britain, was ahead of him, and Hall passed him too.
“You can’t outrun a dog,” Hall said. “A dog will follow you forever.”
Hall captured Olympic gold on Wednesday night with a never-give-up resilience that won’t soon be forgotten. He passed a stunned Hudson-Smith with 10 meters to go, leaned toward the finish line, then stared at the video board to make sure what he thought he had just witnessed was real.
Hall’s winning time was a personal best of 43.40 seconds, the fourth-fastest time ever run by a man over 400 meters. That was four-hundredths of a second faster than Hudson-Smith, now the fifth-fastest in history over 400 meters.
Five of the eight men in the final clocked times under 44 seconds. Zambia’s Muzala Samukonga ran 43.74 to take bronze, his country’s second medal ever and first since 1996.
When Hall was asked when he knew he would win, he replied dryly, “As soon as they fired that gun.”
“You can’t get far enough,” he said matter-of-factly. “That’s what I’m known for. If you don’t get far enough away, I’ll get you every time.”
The determination that has become Hall’s trademark is a byproduct of the obstacle-laden path he’s taken to the top of his sport. After high school, he enrolled in the College of Sequoias, a community college in California that Hall said had no student housing or cafeteria. He worked two jobs to pay for tuition, food and a place to sleep at night.
“That’s where I feel like I’ve become the dog I say I am,” Hall said.
As a pro, Hall trains without partners — and sometimes alone. Curtis Allen, the coach he met in high school, shouts instructions down the phone.
Hall, a former NCAA 400-meter hurdles champion at South Carolina, began his pro career with a focus on that event. For two years, his best times in the 400-meter hurdles were fast, but not in the same league as Rai Benjamin, Karsten Warholms and Alison Dos Santos.
Earlier this summer, Hall told Olympics.com that he was “wasting time” running that event as a pro. On Wednesday night, he called shifting his focus to the Open 400 two years ago the “best decision of my life.”
When Hall won a bronze medal at last year’s world championships in Budapest and ran his first sub-44-second times this summer, he developed a reputation for a fearsome kick. He had developed his endurance when he was younger. In high school, he ran everything from the 200, to the 400, to the 800, to the 1,500. Sometimes he did them all in the same race. In junior college, he won the 400, and 20 minutes later he was lining up for the 400 hurdles.
Hudson-Smith said his coaches warned him about Hall’s kick in the last 50 meters of a race. As a result, he “got the f—- out,” as he put it, by pushing the pace early and building a lead on the final straight.
Hall was blind to the rest of the field in lane eight on Wednesday night and came out faster than normal, but it still wasn’t fast enough. The pace was so high that Hall made up a lot of ground going into the final 100 meters.
As Hall ran, he said to himself, “Go home, son.” He thought of all the grueling workouts he’d done alone. He thought of dragging himself through junior college. He thought of his two brothers who had died young, his mother, and his two young daughters.
Hudson-Smith admitted he was surprised by Hall’s heroic last-minute attack.
“I thought I had it,” Hudson-Smith said. “If you’re going to win, you’re going to have to take it from me. That’s exactly what he did.”
Last month, during a podcast appearance, Noah Lyles considered which sprinters to include in his dream U.S. 4×400-meter relay. Notably absent from Lyles’ selections was Hall, the man who won the U.S. 400-meter title at the Olympic Trials last June.
Christopher Bailey was Lyles’ choice to start. Lyles identified himself as the best option for the second stage, even though he is known primarily as a short sprinter. Michael Norman and Benjamin were Lyles’ choices for the penultimate stage and the anchor position.
“The only reason I wouldn’t use the current U.S. champion is I just don’t think he would be a starter,” Lyles explained. “Using him in the first leg would almost be a waste of his talents.”
On July 19, Hall tagged Lyles in a post on X, writing, “My blocks are ready whenever you feel like you can beat me at the 400.”
“You were talking [too] “I’m putting a lot of my name on your little podcast,” Hall added. “I don’t do the little slick comments and remarks. I stand in line.”
It’s probably safe to assume that Lyles wouldn’t leave Quincy Hall out again if he had a do-over. Hall lined up against seven of the world’s best quarter-milers, saw a few of them get a lead, and then roared back to beat them all.
