U.S. Mixed 4x400-Meter Relay Team Sets World Record in Preliminaries on Opening Day of Track & Field in Paris

SAINT-DENIS, France – Four new Americans sprinted into world track and field history on Friday as they broke the world record in the mixed 4x400-meter relay with a time of 3:07.41. The record was set in the first of the mixed relay’s round one heats.

The previous world record time of 3:08.80 was set by another American relay team during the 2023 World Athletics Championships in Budapest. None of the four members on the previous world record relay were participants in Friday’s event.

The team of Vernon Norwood, Shamier Little, Bryce Deadmon and Kaylyn Brown will participate in what will be just the second mixed 4x400-meter relay final after the event was introduced to the Olympic program at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020.

“I always knew we were going to run fast,” Little said after the race. “We talked about, you know it’s going to take a record to get a medal, but it took a record to win our prelim.”

The group had plenty of room, finishing over three seconds ahead of France, the next fastest team, which set a national record with a time of 3:10.60.

Of the seven other relay teams that will advance to Saturday’s final, four set national records. Great Britain, Belgium and Jamaica joined France and the U.S. in a record-breaking night.

“We knew what it was,” Norwood said of the world record. “We knew winning was going to take getting a record, but our job is to just come out here and execute.”

Norwood led-off for the U.S. team and finished the first leg of the relay in 44.47 seconds. He passed the baton to Little, who ran her 400 meters in 49.32 seconds. Deadmon ran USA’s third leg, and handed off to Brown, who brought the world record home. Her split time was 49.45 seconds.

Deadmon ran the fastest leg of any runner on any team in the relay, completing his 400 meters in 44.17 seconds. All of USA’s four runners ran sub 50-second splits, the only relay team in all of the preliminary heats to accomplish the feat.

“I guess we’ve got a lot left,” Deadmon said. “I didn’t think we were going to do that today, so I’m excited for tomorrow for sure.”

The quartet will compete in Saturday’s mixed 4x400-meter relay final at 2:55 p.m. ET.

Madie Chandler is writing for Team USA as a graduate student in the Sports Capital Journalism Program at Indiana University Indianapolis.