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Olympic athlete Trevor Bassitt, 26, Team USA Track & Field and 5x World Medalist, competed in the men’s 400-meter hurdles in the 2024 summer Olympics. See part 1 HERE.

By Benji Bergstrand

As Trevor Bassitt began to settle into life in the Olympic Village and tune up for his 400m hurdle preliminary race one thing that wasn’t high on his to-do list was sightseeing. “I had been to Paris before for a race in 2023. I had seen the Eiffel Tower,” Bassitt said. Plus, there was all the walking. “If you weren’t going to an Olympic site where they had a shuttle, you would have to walk a good ten minutes out from the village because all the roads were shut down and they wouldn’t let people through without a credential, and there are few things I hate more than unnecessary walking, so I didn’t go sightseeing too much.”

The village itself provided Trevor plenty of opportunities for entertainment and exploration. At over 130 acres and supporting a population of over 14,000 people, it truly was a village within the city of Paris. “The Village itself was massive,” Bassitt said. “I didn’t even see every part of it. There were shuttles that could take you anywhere in the village you wanted. There was a grocery store, a Paris 2024 merchandise store, a Samsung store and there were vending machines all over with free Coca Cola products for the villagers. They also had some interactive games and scavenger hunts athletes could do to try and get pins.” ▶︎

Olympic pin collecting was a popular pastime among villagers that helped athletes get to know those from other countries. “Pin trading is super popular. Athletes get special Olympic pins to trade with other athletes,” Bassitt said. “It’s a good way to keep athletes a little busy, help athletes socialize with people from other countries that they might not normally get to interact with.”

Trevor took full advantage of pin trading, eventually collecting 66 pins. “I walked up to people in the cafeteria and on the street. Everybody is wearing their team gear so you can tell who’s with what country,” Bassitt said. “Belize had a really cool pin because it was a toucan, but that one was also cool because Belize only had one Olympian so that was a super rare one.” 

The real business at hand was, of course, preparing to compete in the 400m hurdles. “I got into a routine fairly quick. Wake up at 7:30, go grab breakfast, catch the 9:00 or 10:00 a.m. shuttle to practice, grab lunch after, get back to the village around 1:30 or 2:30,” Bassitt said. 

Back at the village Trevor would continue preparations of a different sort. “Once you get back from the team USA facility, you mosey around and if you need treatment, you go get treatment whether that’s acupuncture, chiropractic or other,” Bassitt said. Trevor has a team of support professionals who help keep him focused and ready for peak performance. “I have a pretty extensive team,” Bassit said. “Coach Holloway, my sports psychologist Casey, my therapist Julia, my acupuncturist Carlos who serves as a therapist for me sometimes, my massage guy Ryan, there’s Deana who helps with my scar tissue, my wife Harley and my training partners. I wouldn’t have been anywhere near the Olympics without each and every one of them.” 

On race day Trevor’s routine differed significantly from practice days due in part to the 9:00 a.m. start times of his first two races. “I have a very set routine I like to do and I try to keep to myself. I woke up at 5:00 a.m. to do my shake-out since I ran at 9:00 a.m. I had to find a flat area of the village to do the shake-out and saw athletes that were finished competing walking around still out from the night before.”

That juxtaposition wasn’t lost on Trevor. “It just kind of highlights the craziness of the village because they were done competing so they were enjoying Paris and enjoying what the Olympic Village has to offer, and then there’s me warming up getting ready for my experience. It’s cool to see the two sides of it.”

When the waiting was finally over and it was time to run, entering the stadium was an incredible moment. “Stepping onto the track for the first time was a surreal experience,” Bassitt said. “The stadium, the purple track, 80,000 screaming fans at 9:00 a.m., hearing the deafening roar for the French hurdler in my heat. It was everything I had ever dreamed of and then some.”

The race ended up not being the Olympic premier that Trevor had wanted. A slow start left him playing catch up in a stacked heat that included world record holder Karsten Warholm of Norway. A 5th place finish meant he would be running in the repechage round for one last chance to advance to the semifinals “I definitely felt disappointed,” Bassitt said. “It wasn’t how I wanted my Olympic debut to go.

But this wasn’t Trevor’s first brush with adversity. Hard lessons learned earlier in the season would serve him well as he faced a do-or-die race the very next day. 

Stay tuned for Part 3. Read Part 1 HERE.