SAINT-DENIS, France -- As Team USA sprinters seek to use these Olympics to reaffirm their status as the world's fastest, their mixed 4x400-meter relay team made an early statement Friday evening.
The team of Vernon Norwood, Shamier Little, Kaylyn Brown and Bryce Deadmon did so with an easy first-place finish in the first round of the event, setting a world record in the process with a time of 3:07.41.
"I always knew we were going to run fast," said Little, the second-leg sprinter. "And we talked about, it's gonna take a record to get a medal. But it took a record to win our prelim. So I was just excited."
After Norwood led off the relay by putting the team in third place, it was Little who snatched the lead and pulled away, creating a buffer so large no other team came close to narrowing it before the end of the race.
Little almost made a mistake on securing the handoff from Norwood, however.
"I just thought I was locked in," Little said. "I had to realize I wasn't where I was supposed to be, re-locked in where I was supposed to be. I just know I took a little momentum into it so I can get it back, and that was kind of the push I needed."
Asked, sarcastically, if she meant to do all of that, Little said, laughing: "Let's just say we did it like that."
Little's dominant leg gave the third runner, Deadmon, the distance he needed to maintain the lead before he handed off the baton to Brown, who finished off the record-setting performance with the second-place anchor trailing more than 40 meters behind. Deadmon said he had no idea a record was potentially in play when he began his sprint.
"I knew we was up there," Deadmon said. "I passed it off to Kaylyn and she brought it home and it said 'world record' and I was like, 'Oh wow. That's crazy.'"
The Americans contended they knew going in what the world record was prior to the race: "3:08.80," they said in unison when asked. They should know. After all, the previous mixed record was set just a year ago at the world championships by none other than Team USA.
The U.S. team can go for another world record and an Olympic gold medal Saturday night during the relay finals. The Dutch and Italian relays rounded out the top three teams in the first-round heat. Both will also contend in the finals.