LaShawn Merritt was the underdog, but he didn’t look like it after less than a minute in the 400-meter dash at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
In a mere 43.75 seconds, Merritt, a 22-year-old Portsmouth native, defeated defending Olympic champion Jeremy Wariner by nearly a second and became the second South Hampton Roads native to claim an Olympic gold medal in an individual event, following boxer Pernell “Sweet Pea” Whitaker in 1984.