USC’s 4x400 relay comeback is one of the best you’ll ever see

The USC women’s 4x400m relay featured one of the greatest comebacks you’ll ever see, in any sport. The video is four minutes long, which helps build the suspense — but skip ahead to around 3:15 if you’re the impatient type.

Let’s set the scene here: Entering the final event of the women’s team championship, USC were trailing Georgia and Stanford. The only way they could win the meet is if the 4x400m team won. For the first three legs they were getting blown out, hovering between 4th and 5th and way behind Purdue.

Then Kendall Ellis got the baton on a bobbled hand-off and made magic happen. For the first 200m she creeped up to third, and if you checked the race here you’d think there was no way she could come back.

Ellis held off on the real gas until the final turn, where she went wild on the final straight to win at the line. Typically relay splits are 7/10ths of a second or so faster than individual times, but USC had a bobbled hand-off and Ellis still finished her leg in 50.05.

That would have won the individual championship every year since 1984. Incredible.