PARIS, France — Rain poured down Friday evening as the gun was about to go off for the 4x100 relay at the Paris Olympics.
The 100-meter bronze medalist and South Carolina native Melissa Jefferson started off the race, but her handoff was slightly shaky to Twanisha Terry who ran the second leg for the team.
Terry also had a questionable hand off to third-leg runner Gabby Thomas who narrowed the gap with Britain and Germany.
When Thomas handed the baton to anchor runner Sha'Carri Richardson, the 100-meter silver medalist overcame the British and Germany runners to help the U.S. finish in 41.78 seconds, a .07-second win over Britain who also struggled with two baton changes in the rain.
This marks the relay team's first Olympic gold medal. It's Thomas' second gold of the Games as she got her first in the 200-meter race.
Melissa Jefferson is a Georgetown, South Carolina, native who already won a gold medal as part of Team USA’s 4x100-meter relay team in the 2022 World Athletics Championships. She raced at Coastal Carolina where she became the first ever individual NCAA National Champion in school history when she got a record time of 7.09 seconds in the 60-meter dash. The 23-year-old also placed first in the 4x100m relay team at the 2023 World Championships and first in the 2024 World Athletics Relays in the same event. Jefferson competed on Friday, Aug. 2, in the Women's 100m heat, qualifying for the next round with a time of 10.96, ranking second in the fourth heat. She took first place in the Women's 100m semi-finals on Saturday.
In the finals, Jefferson kept up with fellow American runner Sha'Carri Richardson to land on the podium, earning a bronze medal with a time of 10.92 seconds.
She competed with Richardson, Twanisha Terry and Gabrielle Thomas in the women's 4x100-meter relay on Thursday, Aug. 8. They came in first in their heat with a time of 41.94 after Richardson bailed out the U.S. women out from a near collapse, overcoming a German runner in the anchor leg to help the Americans win their heat and move to the gold-medal race.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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