SAINT-DENIS, France – At the end of the night, the end of nine glorious days and nights of leaving the rest of the world behind, America’s golden girls Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone and Gabby Thomas led their U.S. teammates Shamier Little and Alexis Holmes on a final lap of honor around the Stade de France on Saturday.

As the quartet ran through its encore, the American flags were lifted up by a cool breeze and enveloped like wings.

On the final night of the Olympics’ track and field competitions, Kenyan middle-distance runner Faith Kipyegon and the U.S. men’s 4×400 relay team made Olympic history and Grant Fisher became the first U.S. distance runner to medal in two events at the same Games. In doing so, McLaughlin-Levrone, Thomas, Little and Holmes reached a place no woman had ever achieved, or even dared to think of, since the dark period of state-sponsored systematic doping in the sport before the fall of the Iron Curtain.

With an American record time of 3 minutes, 15.27 seconds, the U.S. team narrowly missed the world record of 3:15.17 set by the Soviet Union at the 1988 Seoul Olympics. That mark has remained in the record books for 36 years and seems unattainable.

Until now.

The Americans’ triumph was a three-minute reminder to the stunned stadium of how a generation of women, led by McLaughlin-Levrone, have forced the sport to rethink records and boundaries long considered insurmountable.

The lasting legacy of these Games will not be how fast McLaughlin-Levrone and Co. ran or how high they jumped, but how they changed the minds of spectators.

“This generation of track and field athletes is at a completely different level,” said McLaughin-Levrone. “Everything is improving: including us, our technique and our preparation. I don’t think anything is impossible at the moment and we prove that every time we go on the track.”

Joining McLaughlin-Levrone in this fight are Kipyegon, Ukrainian high jumper Yaroslava Mahuchikh, Swedish pole vaulter Mondo Duplantis and American shot putter Ryan Crouser, all of whom have broken decades-old world records and smashed breathtaking barriers in recent years.

That same afternoon at the Paris Diamond League meeting on July 7, Mahuchikh and Kipyegon set world records just minutes apart: the Ukrainian beat Bulgaria’s Stefka Kostadinova’s world record of 1.80 meters and 31.80 meters, respectively, and Kipyegon improved her own record in the 1,500 meters to 3:49.04. In July 2023, Kipyegon beat the world record in the one-mile by almost five seconds, with a time of 4:07.64.

“Just incredible,” said Britain’s Laura Muir, who won the silver medal in the 1,500m at the Olympic Games in Tokyo. “I don’t know what to say. She’s absolutely phenomenal.”

Saturday night was another record-breaking night for the Kenyan as she won the 1,500m in an Olympic record of 3:51.29 to win her third gold medal in the event, joining Crouser and Belgian heptathlete Nafissatou Thiam in winning her third consecutive gold at the Paris Games.

“This is a huge achievement. I was really looking forward to defending my title (from Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020) and I had a dream,” Kipyegaon said. “I’m unbelievable that I did it. I’m so, so happy. This is history. I managed to make history. I did it.”

Like McLaughlin-Levrone in the 400-meter hurdles, Kipyegon forced her competitors to perform at their best. The next three runners behind her, Australia’s Jessica Hull (3:52.56), Britain’s Georgia Bell (3:52.61) and Ethiopia’s Diribe Welteji (3:53.11), also finished under Kipyegon’s previous Olympic record from Tokyo.

“I envisioned a battle, the four of us at the top of the straight. I thought to myself, ‘I’m not going to be the one going home without a medal,'” Hull said. To see Georgia do it is pretty incredible. We just finished second and third behind the greatest of all time, it’s just unreal.”

Muir ran over a second longer (3:53.37) than when she won the silver medal in Tokyo, but could not get beyond fifth place in Paris.

“The standards have gone crazy,” Muir said.

However, no one has contributed more to improving the level of sport than McLaughlin-Levrone.

These were the Olympic Games in Sydney.

On Thursday, she set her sixth world record in the last three years, defending her gold medal in the 400m hurdles in 50.37 seconds. In a discipline where the world record stood at 52.35 seconds from August 2003 to July 2019, McLaughin-Levrone has broken the 52- and 51-second barriers and is now close to breaking the 50-second barrier as well.

“I think 49 is possible,” she said.

On Saturday, another sold-out crowd wondered what she would do in the flat 400-meter relay.

By the time McLaughlin-Levrone and her teammates took to the track for the competition’s grand finale, it had already been a big night for Team USA.

Masai Russell won a final over 100 meters hurdles, in which the first three runners crossed the finish line just three hundredths of a second apart: Russell with 12.33, just ahead of the Frenchwoman Cyrena Samba-Mayela (12.34) and the reigning Olympic champion Jasmine Camacho-Quinn from Puerto Rico (12.36).

American Shelby McEwen finished tied for first place with New Zealander Hamish Kerr at the end of the high jump, but Kerr won the gold medal in the second round of a jump-off.

Fisher and half-miler Bryce Hoppel capped off the biggest Olympics in American middle- and long-distance running. Four days after Cole Hocker, Yared Nuguse and Hobbs Kessler finished 1st, 3rd and 5th in the 1,500-meter final, Hoppel became the first American to break 1:42, running 1:41.67 to finish fourth in the 800-meter final.

It’s worth noting that since the 1992 Olympics, with Hocker’s win in Paris and Matthew Centrowitz’s 1,500m victory at the 2016 Games, the U.S. men have won more gold medals in the metric mile than in the 4×100 relay.

Fisher, with a late surge, repeated his bronze medal finish in the 10,000 meters, which he secured earlier in the Games, with a bronze medal in the 5,000 meters in 13:15.13, becoming the first American to medal in both events at the same Olympics. In fact, it was the first time Americans had medaled in both events since 1964, when Billy Mills won the 10,000 and Bob Schul and Bill Dellinger finished 1st and 3rd in the 5,000 meters.

Norwegian Jakob Ingebrigtsen recovered from a disappointing fourth place in the 1,500m to win the 5,000m in 13:13.66.

After Kenneth Rooks won a silver medal in the 3,000-meter steeplechase at the Games, the U.S. long-distance team leaves Paris with a record five medals.

Rai Benjamin, winner of the 400m hurdles on Friday night, led the 4x400m relay against Botswana’s Leslie Tebogo, the new Olympic 200m champion, to give the U.S. team, which competed without injured 400m gold medalist Quincy Hall, an Olympic record victory of 2:54.43 to 2:54.53 and set the stage for the women’s relay.

Benjamin shared 43.18, Tebago 43.04.

There was some controversy surrounding the US team’s participation in a relay race that has almost become a prerequisite for the Olympic Games.

Kendall Ellis, USC’s former NCAA champion and Olympic qualifier in the 400-meter dash, said on social media Saturday that she was not told she was being left off the team until minutes before the race.

“Imagine being told this morning that you are competing in the 4×4 final and then finding out minutes before the end that you are not,” Ellis wrote.

She did not say whether she was given a reason for the change.