+ A
A -
tca/dpaEugene, OregonOne year after his Olympic dreams faded in Tokyo, US sprinter Michael Norman won the 400-meter gold medal at the World Championships in Eugene on Friday night, outrunning a tight pack of challengers to the roars of a raucous Hayward Field.Norman finished in 44.29 seconds to fill the only considerable gap on his young resume with a victory in a global championship. Kirani James of Grenada earned silver in 44.48 and Britain’s Matthew Hudson-Smith took bronze.Norman’s title continued the dominance of the US men in the sprints, one night after a sweep of the medals in the 200m and six days after another sweep in the 100m.The effusive on track, Norman has been one of the world’s fastest over 200 and 400 meters since he was a prep senior in 2016, but had yet to turn the promise of his college record into serious individual hardware in a world championship or Olympics, the stages by which track’s elite are judged. In each case, he could identify a clear reason. But that was not the case with his fifth-place finish in last summer’s Tokyo Olympics.Everything about his training since, he said in May, had built toward redeeming himself in Eugene in front of the first US crowd to watch a world outdoor championship. Norman raced over to his father and coach, Quincy Watts, after the title.In an on-track interview, he called his last three years a “challenging, challenging journey.”
