Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone lowered her world record once again, running the 400m hurdles in 50.65 seconds on Sunday at the US Olympic trials.
In only her fourth 400m hurdles race of the season, the 24-year-old defending Olympic champion cleared all 10 barriers with ease, then went on a dead sprint to the line to break the record for the fifth time. Four of those marks have now come on the track at University of Oregon’s Hayward Field.
She held her hand over her mouth and stared in amazement when she saw the time come up. It was 0.03sec better than her run at Hayward in the 2022 world championships.
“My husband asked me yesterday, ‘What do you think you can do?’ and I told him, ‘I don’t know,’” McLaughlin-Levrone said after the race. “Then today, I crossed the line and I’m like: ‘Oh, snap.’ I’m blessed and happy to be here.”
In an event that used to be decided by fine margins, McLaughlin-Levrone’s victory was by 1.99sec over Anna Cockrell and 2.12sec over Jasmine Jones.
It doesn’t so much reset the storyline for the Olympics – McLaughlin-Levrone would have been the heavy favorite anyway – as it raises the question of what she can achieve next.
From 2003-19, the world record in this event stayed stuck at 52.34. American Dalilah Muhammad broke it twice in 2019 – the second time at the world championships in a race that demoralized McLaughlin-Levrone and sparked a move over to coach Bobby Kersee.
Kersee changed everything for her. One of the biggest adjustments was dropping her to 14 strides between the early hurdles. It was a move that has put her in a class by herself since she first set the world record, at the US Olympic trials in 2021.
“I’ve been growing as a person and growing as an athlete [with Kersee as my coach],” McLaughlin-Levrone said. “He challenges me and pushes me in ways I didn’t think were possible.”
The conversation may soon turn to whether she can break the 50-second barrier in the race. Maybe as soon as 8 August, the date of the Olympic final in Paris.
“It could happen,” two-time 400m hurdles Olympic champion Edwin Moses told the Associated Press. “She might need a couple more races, but that’s about it.”
In addition to leaving US trials with the world record in hurdles, she also has the fastest time in the flat 400m this year. McLaughlin-Levrone ran 48.75 in New York at the start of June, a daunting sign for any country that hopes to challenge the US in the 4×400 relay in Paris.
“I’ve said it before, [she] just ran a world record and it’s like we’re not even shocked at this point,” said Muhammad, the 2016 Olympic champion who finished sixth on Sunday. “She’s just an amazing talent, a generational talent for sure.”