TOKYO – Rai Benjamin ran a race to remember in the men’s 400m hurdles on Monday, August 2, 2021. Benjamin won the silver medal, in his very first Olympics appearance, crossing the finish line in 46.17 seconds, the second-fastest time in history.
“If you would have told me I would run 46.1 [seconds] and lose, I would probably beat you up. I’d tell you to get out of my room,” Benjamin said after the race.
Benjamin, a native of Mount Vernon, NY captured the first Olympic medal of his career at the age of 24. He came up short by 0.11 seconds but he is still the number two ranked 400m hurdler in the world, and that is nothing to sneeze at. He broke a record that was set five years before he was born.
He won a silver medal in the men’s 400 m hurdles and a gold medal in the 4 × 400 m relay at the World Championships in 2019. In college, Benjamin ran for the UCLA Bruins and then the USC Trojans, where in early 2018 he was part of the team that set the world best time in the indoor 4 × 400 m relay with a time of 3:00.77. At the time, his relay split time of 44.35 s was the fastest ever recorded in an indoor race. In June of the same year, he also helped set the NCAA record in the same event but outdoors and ran what was at the time the second fastest 400 m hurdles race of all-time in 47.02 s.
Black Westchester congratulates and salutes Rai Benjamin, a Mount Vernon legend, and we look forward to witnessing the greatness ahead of him!
