RIP”: Track and Field Community Mourns the Passing  Olympic Champion at 2024.

The last surviving member of the Golden Quartet from the Helsinki Games (1952), the second Jamaican to win a gold medal in track and field after 400m Olympic gold medalist Arthur Wint, the Morgan State Bear that shattered the 400m world record in 1950, George Rhoden passed away at 97 on August 24. Back in 1948, it was as if the world was preparing for a legend to emerge, but a truly painful disappointment restricted the quarter-miler from a gold win in the London Games. And he, who spent most part of his life in the USA, got his redemption just four years later in the most dramatic way possible!

Arthur Wint, Leslie Laing, Herb McKenley, and George Rhoden entered the London Games with hopes of defeating the mighty Americans, and they were, in fact, best positioned to do so. After all, they had Wint coming off an Olympic high, winning the 400m in a time of 46.2 seconds which equaled the then-WR and a silver in the 800m. Wint’s muscle injury in the third leg of the race meant it was all over for the Jamaicans, leaving Rhoden’s only chance at an Olympic medal high and dry. In the next edition of the Games, the same quartet returned — or shall we add, returned to take what was rightfully theirs.

Americans and Jamaicans were the clear favorites to win. Heats and semis were a breeze for these contenders. In the finals, Americans temporarily had a slight advantage in the first two legs. Wint, who ran the first leg this time, fell a tad short against Ollie Matson — a time difference that only lengthened with USA’s Gene Cole outpacing Laing by a considerable 10m margin at the halfway mark!