FAYETTEVILLE — Britton Wilson completed her sophomore track and field season at the University of Arkansas by being part of an All-SEC relay team that won the gold medal at the world championships.
Wilson joined Florida sophomore Talitha Diggs, Kentucky senior Abby Steiner and former Kentucky star Sydney McLaughlin on the U.S. team that won the 1,600-meter relay in 3 minutes, 17.79 seconds on Sunday night in Eugene, Ore., in the final event of the first world championships held in the United States.
Last month at the NCAA Championships held on the same Hayward Field track, Wilson won the 400-meter hurdles, Diggs won the 400 meters and Steiner won the 200 meters. McLaughlin won the 400-meter hurdles at the 2018 NCAA Championships in her only year competing at Kentucky before she turned pro.
“It just shows how much the SEC is such a big part of track and field,” said Wilson, who broke her own Arkansas record in running 53.09 in the 400-meter hurdles to finish second at the USA Championships at Hayward Field earlier this summer. “How the best athletes go to SEC schools to compete against each other.”
Arkansas assistant coach Chris Johnson said it wasn’t a surprise SEC sprinters comprised the entire 1,600 relay.
“Obviously that’s what the SEC produces,” Johnson said. “We see those people all the time, and we know what they’re capable of, and they know what we’re capable of.
“I think it just shows you the competitive nature of the SEC and how hard it is to compete at this level. I think sometimes people take that for granted, but when you’re in the SEC, you’ve got to be elite to be at the top.
“Those young ladies, including Britton, were at the top of their game.”
Wilson, who finished fifth in the 400 hurdles at the world championships on Friday night, said she hoped to run on the relay, but didn’t find out for sure she was on the team until about three hours before the final.
Prior to winning the gold medal, Diggs, Steiner, Wilson and McLaughlin had not run on a relay together.
“We just knew we had to get it done,” Wilson said. “Give our best effort and get the stick around the track.
“I wasn’t really worried. I knew as long as we had good handoffs, we’d be alright.”
Wilson, Diggs and Steiner ran on relays multiple times during the collegiate season.
At the NCAA Indoor Championships, Arkansas’ relay of Rosey Effiong, Jayla Hollis, Shafiqua Maloney and Wilson won in a collegiate record time of 3:24.09.
Wilson also anchored the Razorbacks’ 1,600 relay team — which included Morgan Burks-Magee, Effiong and Jada Baylark — to a third-place finish at the NCAA Outdoor Championships in 3:26.69.
Steiner was on Kentucky’s team that won the 1,600 relay in an NCAA Outdoor meet record 3:21.93. Diggs ran on Florida’s relay that finished ninth. McLaughlin, who won the gold medal in the 400 hurdles at the 2020 Olympics and broke her own world record in winning at the world championships in 50.68, has run on relays in college and international competition.
“They all have relay experience,” Johnson said of the gold medal U.S. team. “So it wasn’t surprising for them to be able to manage the handoffs and manage the stress of it.
“Once you go through an SEC season and an NCAA season, you’re more than fine-tuned and ready to go.”
Wilson ran the third leg Sunday night in 49.39, the second-fastest time in the race behind McLaughlin’s 47.91. Diggs ran 50.50 and Steiner 49.49.
At the SEC Championships, Wilson won the 400 in 50.05 seconds — which set Arkansas’ school record and broke the mark of 50.25 run by Taylor Ellis-Watson in 2016 — in addition to winning 400 hurdles. She also ran a 48.6 split on Arkansas’ third-place 1,600 relay team.
At the world championships, Wilson got the baton from Steiner with a slight lead over the teams from Jamaica and Great Britain and extended the advantage for McLaughlin.
“I wanted to give it my best effort,” Wilson said. “I was glad I got it to Sydney in the lead.”
Sunday’s attendance was 12,143 and the crowd cheered loudly for the U.S. relay team.
“It was pretty surreal honestly,” Wilson said. “I’ve never run in front of a crowd that big. So it was really cool to be in that environment.”
Wilson was the fourth American female 400-meter hurdler to run on a gold-medal relay team at the world championships along with Lashinda Demus in 2009, Dalilah Muhammad in 2019 and McLaughlin in 2019 and this year.
“Just a great experience,” Wilson said. “Obviously I want to go to the next world championships and try to medal individually. This is just the beginning of what can happen at the next meet.”
Johnson said he lobbied the U.S. coaches to put Wilson on the relay.
“Whatever leg they were going to have her run, I was more than confident she could take care of her business,” Johnson said. “I expected her to be on the relay, and I knew what she could do if she got the opportunity. That was proven.”
Wilson transferred to Arkansas after a frustrating two years at Tennessee. where she wasn’t able to improve on her times that made her the Virginia Gatorade Female Track Athlete of the Year at Mills Godwin High School in 2019.
Working with Johnson, Wilson became a collegiate star.
“When you have a transfer coming in, you know the talent is there, but you don’t know what to expect based on the results at the previous institution,” Johnson said. “I think she had a hard reset and did a great job of executing what we worked on in practice.
“About the middle of the indoor season, you could see that she was taking off, and she just kept getting better and better and better. There’s nothing I threw at her that she squawked about.
“We couldn’t be more proud of her. The season was nothing short of phenomenal in my opinion, and I think there’s much more there in the tank.”
Wilson, 21, could continue to progress in her career with the World Championships next year in Budapest and the 2024 Olympics in Paris.
“I don’t want to put any undue pressure on Britton, but obviously the expectations are high,” Johnson said. “We don’t want to put a cap on what she’s capable of doing.
“I just think you need to keep a close eye watching her development, because there are some special things to come.”