EUGENE, Ore. — Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone knelt a few steps past the finish line at Hayward Field, her eyes glued to the video screen and her right hand covering her mouth in shock.
The time she saw next to her name confirmed that she had just improved her world record in the 400m hurdles for the fifth time since June 2021.
“I just thought, ‘That can’t be,'” McLaughlin-Levrone said. “Honestly, I didn’t expect that moment.”
Continuing her assault on preconceived notions of what is achievable in her signature race, McLaughlin-Levrone on Sunday led eight of America’s fastest 400-meter hurdlers at the U.S. Olympic Trials. She blazed across the finish line in 50.65 seconds, three-hundredths of a second faster than her previous world record and nearly two seconds faster than anyone else in the world had run the 400-meter hurdles this year.
To put McLaughlin-Levrone’s stunning time into perspective, consider that it’s not just the 400-meter hurdlers who can’t keep up with her. McLaughlin-Levrone ran faster than four of the nine women who competed in the open 400-meter finals at Trials this past weekend on Sunday. That’s the race without 10 hurdles.
“She just broke the world record and it’s like we’re not even shocked anymore,” said Dalilah Muhammad, the 2016 Olympic champion and the last person to beat McLaughlin-Levrone in a 400-meter hurdles race. “She’s just an amazing talent, a generational talent.”
The world record time further cements McLaughlin-Levrone as the overwhelming favorite to repeat as Olympic champion later this summer in Paris. McLaughlin-Levrone is the most dominant athlete in her sport, what Tiger Woods was to golf, what Serena Williams was to tennis, what Michael Phelps was to swimming.
Jasmine Jones, the USC senior who finished third in Sunday’s 400-meter hurdles final, described McLaughlin-Levrone as “an inspiration” and said she prepared for this season by reading the world record holder’s autobiography. For Jones, standing next to McLaughlin-Levrone in the starting blocks was “humanizing” the athlete she admired as a child.
It was a similar experience for Akala Garrett, the Texas freshman who finished seventh in the 400-meter hurdles final on Sunday. Garrett said she was “starstruck” while warming up next to McLaughlin-Levrone and had to resist the urge to ask for a photo.
“The focus and belief in herself that she has, I want that for myself too,” Garrett said.
McLaughlin-Levrone has been marked for world domination since she was old enough to legally drive a car. By the time she was 16, the New Jersey native had won her first Gatorade High School Athlete of the Year Award, rewritten the High School Record Book and made her first U.S. Olympic team.
One of the few current 400-meter hurdlers who knows what it’s like to beat McLaughlin-Levrone is fellow U.S. Trials finalist Shamier Little. The margin at Junior Nationals was as much as two-tenths of a second when Little was a rising sophomore at Texas A&M and McLaughlin-Levrone was a precocious 14-year-old.
In a sport full of teenage phenoms who failed to live up to their expectations, McLaughlin has proven to be the exception. When McLaughlin-Levrone turned pro after her freshman year at Kentucky, Muhammad was just beginning to break old barriers by running under 53 seconds. McLaughlin-Levrone took that and built on it, sparking a generation of young hurdlers who are now starting to run 52s and 53s alongside her.
It’s not one trait that makes McLaughlin-Levrone so great, her competitors say. It’s a combination of her speed, her speed endurance and her hurdling technique. Earlier this season, McLaughlin-Levrone ran the 200 meters in a stunning 22.07 seconds and the open 400 meters in a world-leading 48.75 seconds. She likely would have qualified for the Olympics in either event had she chosen to double up at Trials.
“I just like to focus on one thing,” McLaughlin-Levrone explained Sunday. “I like to focus on one thing and do it the best I can.”
How fast could McLaughlin-Levrone run in Paris?
“I still think she can make it to 49,” Muhammad said.
That’s a long-term goal, McLaughlin-Levrone admitted. In a development that should terrify other 400-meter hurdlers, McLaughlin-Levrone believes she can run even faster if she improves her technique.
McLaughlin-Levrone said Sunday: “I think it’s really exciting to figure out how we can improve on history.”
