From bronze to gold: Rai Benjamin anchors US men's 4x400 relay to World Championships win
It's hard to imagine someone needing redemption after winning a medal at the World Athletic Championships, or at any championship for that matter.
But if Rai Benjamin needed that after his third-place performance in the 400-meter hurdles Wednesday, he got it Sunday.
The 26-year-old University of Southern California graduate, who first starred locally in track and field at Mount Vernon High School, anchored the U.S. men's 4x400-meter relay team to gold Sunday during the final day of the championships in Budapest, Hungary.
Quincy Hall, Vernon Norwood and Justin Robinson each led their lap before Robinson handed the baton to Benjamin, who brought it home in a 2023 world team-leading time of 2:57.31.
In a race that sometimes comes down to hundredths and even thousandths of a second, this one wasn't close with runnier-up France 1.44 seconds behind.
The win was the Americans' 12th in the men's 4x400 in 19 World Championships, no small feat given how much can go wrong in a relay. The gold medal-favorite U.S. women's 4x400 team, for example, was disqualified in Friday's women's semifinals for making a baton exchange outside the prescribed area. And The Netherlands anchor, Femke Bol, who'd go on to win women's 400 hurdles and women's 4x400 relay gold (the latter in a phenomenal come-from-behind anchor run) fell just before the finish of the mixed 4x400 as she was being pressured by Alexis Holmes, who gave the U.S. the win.
But the U.S. men's 4x400 was close to flawless. Hall clocked 44.54, Norwood a team-best 44.01, Robinson 44.74 and Benjamin a fast 44.02.
Relays are not new to Benjamin, who anchored the U.S. to Olympic gold in the 4x400 in 2021 in Tokyo after winning silver there in his signature event, the 400 hurdles. He also anchored the U.S. to the 4x400 title at the 2019 World Championships, where he won his first of two silver medals in the world 400 hurdles.
Haggerty: After a huge win for Mount Vernon and Section 1, time to celebrate Rai Benjamin
But Benjamin entered Sunday's relay at somewhere less than 100%. His training was interrupted for weeks this season due to a quad injury. That may have contributed to his sub-par hurdles race. Benjamin, who owns the second fastest time ever run in the 400 hurdles, 46.17, which gained him silver in Tokyo, had hoped to win his first individual world title but ran 47.56 in collecting bronze.
That race seemed well behind him, however, when he got the baton from Robinson and then put Sunday's relay away, giving up zero ground.
"It's an honor to come back and anchor this relay. ... It means a lot to me that these guys have faith in me and trust in me to bring home the gold," Benjamin said after the race, which gave the U.S. its 12th gold medal of the World Championships.
Nancy Haggerty covers cross-country, track & field, field hockey, skiing, ice hockey, basketball, girls lacrosse and other sporting events for The Journal News/lohud. Follow her on Twitter at @HaggertyNancy.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Rai Benjamin rebounds to anchor US to World Championships relay win
