With over 45,000,000 views in just one day, chances are either you or someone you know has already seen MrBeast's new YouTube video, "100 Kids Vs World's Strongest Man!", which prominently features World 100m champion Melissa Jefferson-Wooden as its first matchup in a series of competitions pitting elite athletes against normal people. Though MrBeast's 444,000,000 subscribers no doubt brought attention and fanfare to the sport, Jefferson-Wooden's segment in the video was over in less than 100 seconds -- not many know the full story behind it.

MrBeast has a history of working with track and field athletes, having organized matchups with Noah Lyles and appearing as a guest on Lyles and 400mH Olympic champion Rai Benjamin's podcast in December 2024.

Jefferson-Wooden's story all started on the morning of October 1st, when hundreds of University of North Carolina men's students received an email from the Rams Club, the school's student-athlete support organization. 

The email asked, targeted at men only: Do you want to participate in a video with a famous YouTuber? Even though the details weren't yet clear, it spread like wildfire across the UNC student body. The attached Google form asked for, among other details, each participant's prior running experience and whether or not they owned running shoes.

Dozens of students showed up to the Finley Athletic Track fields at around 11:30am to participate in the stunt. There didn't appear to be any clear selection criteria that forbade, for example, varsity athletes from joining. Despite the hype, it took a while to gather the "100 Men" the video required -- the actual race didn't begin until two hours later. One of the participants, Caleb Jahnel, didn't receive the email and came to the venue to watch, but was surprised to be asked if also wanted to join "the game" as MrBeast aimed to fill his 101-person field.

Each racer was given a blue T-shirt with a number, while Melissa Jefferson-Wooden was dressed in all pink to contrast with her competitors. The MrBeast team even offered GoPro cameras to a few racers who wanted extra screen time.

Jefferson-Wooden stood on the starting line wearing her three 2025 World Athletics Championships gold medals in the 100m, 200m, and 4x100m relay. "When did you win these three gold medals?", MrBeast asked, to which Jefferson-Wooden said, "two weeks ago".

Despite her global hardware, most of the students underestimated Jefferson-Wooden. Runner #1 said "GG dubs baby, let's go!" as most cheered when asked if they thought they could beat her in a race. MrBeast asked, "Between us, are you confident you're going to beat them?" to which Jefferson-Wooden confidently replied, "Yes".

At this point, MrBeast upped the stakes by offering $100,000 to any of the men who could beat her to the surprise of both Jefferson-Wooden and the students. The prize, if awarded, would be the largest ever cash amount for winning a non-championship track and field race (Grand Slam Track offered the same prize money for winning their series but has struggled to pay out the full amount in the months since). The race was to take place lengthwise on turf across the fields by the Finley Athletic Track, from the edge of the lacrosse field to the midpoint of the adjacent soccer field -- a distance of 103 meters according to Google Maps aerial data.

During a similar qualifying event for the Beast Games last year, one contestant was hit in the head and suffered a brain injury. Despite this, there weren't many rules or other visible safety measures displayed in Melissa Jefferson-Wooden's race -- the only one emphasized was not to jump the starting horn. Jefferson-Wooden positioned herself in a three-point start. Placed in the center of the field, she had a lane drawn out for herself so you could clearly see her position against the men. It didn't appear she got the fastest start, but she began to pull away in the middle portion of the race and held a clear lead by half-way.

One athlete to her right, #35, appeared to be the most formidable challenger. Though #35 was never depicted in the lead during the video, he finished just a few meters behind Jefferson-Wooden in what looked to be about a third of a second back. As the video was heavily edited, there were no official times given.

Jefferson-Wooden screamed in celebration after winning the match-up. "Good job, I saw you, great job!", she said to #35. "Do you do track?" MrBeast asked #35, who said he didn't. "You probably should", MrBeast said, and there may be some truth to that -- assuming (for the sake of argument) that Jefferson-Wooden was near her fastest (10.6 over 100m) and #35 finished 0.3 seconds behind, he would be not far from the Tar Heels' top 2025 100m mark of 10.85 seconds.

With the stunt completed, the students returned to classes and the video was uploaded just ten days later on October 11th. MrBeast's foray into track and field isn't over, though -- rumors from the campus are that Noah Lyles was also in the area and raced against a Boston Dynamics robot dog in what could have been content for a future MrBeast video.