There was another photo finish at the 2024 Paris Olympics on Saturday.
After Noah Lyles narrowly took the gold medal in the men's 100-meter final earlier in the Olympics, United States' Masai Russell was able to win a gold medal in the 100-meter hurdles on Saturday — by a hundredth of a second.
Russell defeated France's Cyrena Samba-Mayela with a time of 12.33 seconds, while Samba-Mayela ran the event in 12.34 seconds. Jasmine Camacho-Quinn of Puerto Rico took bronze with a 12.36-second time.
Russell's Rise to Olympic Glory
The 24-year-old hurdler's gold medal was her first career Olympic podium finish. Her journey to the top of the podium has been filled with both triumph and adversity.
At the beginning of the year, Russell, as she always does, wrote herself a list of goals. She finished third at the USA indoor championships and fourth in the indoor world championships, and her best 60-meter time was 7.79. She has not yet broken 12.25 in the 100-meter hurdles, but in July, she won Olympic Trials, and on Saturday, by the slimmest of margins, she achieved the goal she wanted most of all.
Tokyo gold medalist Jasmine Camacho-Quinn, of Puerto Rico, led as late as the eighth hurdle, and France’s Cyrena Samba-Mayela appeared to have a couple inches on Russell as they cleared the last hurdle, but Russell’s strength has always been her finishing kick. She has trained those last 10 meters, after the 10th hurdle, what feels like thousands of times. And she knew that this field is so deep that success would come down to a lean. So she leaned as hard as she could.
“The fact that I was that close between a gold and a silver—I’m glad I did,” she said with a laugh.
After it was over, as she stared at the jumbotron waiting to see which color her medal would be, she thought, Come on, come on, come on. Then her name appeared first, in 12.33, one hundredth of a second ahead of Samba-Mayela and three hundredths ahead of Camacho-Quinn.
Russell wandered around in disbelief for a while, but by the time the United States anthem played, she was weeping.
“It always seems like it’s not possible,” she said, “Until it is.”
Samba-Mayela's Silver Lining
Defending Olympic champion Camacho-Quinn was disappointed in her own performance, although she acknowledged some pride in capturing her second of Puerto Rico’s 11 ever medals. But Samba-Mayela sobbed too, sprawled across the track immediately after she learned she’d won silver. “I thought [the Olympics in France] would be some of the most stressful days of my life, but actually it has been a lot of pleasure, because of all this crowd,” she said. “They are lovers of sport, and they shared that pleasure with me. All that joy, it lifted me, and when I could hear them all screaming my name and ‘Allez les bleus,’ it was just amazing. It was really lifting me.”
Kentucky Wildcat Dominance
On the final day of track and field competition at the Paris Olympic Games, Kentucky Track and Field athletes won four medals, including three gold, bringing the week’s overall haul to a program-best six medals.
Masai Russell took home the gold medal in the 100m hurdles in a dramatic photo finish. In the same event, Jasmine Camacho-Quinn, the gold medalist from Tokyo, secured the bronze. This is the second consecutive Olympics in which the gold medalist in the 100m hurdles has come from Kentucky, as well as the second straight Olympics in which two Wildcats have finished on the podium in that event.
A Legacy of Success
But on this day, no one could top Russell. In some ways, this moment felt like it took forever to arrive. “Honestly, seeing everyone else from Team USA do their thing, I was like, ‘Yeah, I need to get a taste of that,’” she said. “Because I've been here for a long time. It’s going on the end of two and a half weeks! So I just wanted to make it a good one. I wanted to come out here and put my name in history.”
But in reality, Russell is 24. She graduated from the University of Kentucky—“Hurdle U,” said Camacho-Quinn, who along with two-time 400-meter hurdle Olympic gold medalist Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone and men’s 110-meter silver medalist Daniel Roberts is a Wildcat—just over a year ago. This is only Russell’s second professional season. She fell during her semifinal at last year’s world championships and did not advance to the final. She finished second, to Camacho-Quinn, in Friday’s semifinal.
“To come out here and this be my first Games and become an Olympic gold medalist, I knew I was capable of it,” she said. “I wrote it down. “I’ve fallen so short so many times this year. But, I mean, none of those races matter now.”
She spent much of Friday night awake, imagining herself atop the podium. “I knew this moment was meant for me,” she said.
Looking Ahead
But even as she was digesting it, she was thinking ahead. She bought herself a black Mercedes to celebrate her Olympic Trials win. After this, she said, “Probably a house.” And she wasn’t done crossing off goals. She still has that world record to break. She grinned and said, “The season’s not over yet.”
The Future is Bright
Masai Russell's Olympic victory is a testament to her hard work, determination, and unwavering belief in herself. It's a moment that will undoubtedly inspire countless athletes to chase their own dreams, and a reminder that anything is possible when you set your mind to it. As she looks ahead to the future, one thing is for sure: the world of track and field will be watching closely to see what this rising star accomplishes next.
