Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone sets world record en route to gold medal in 400-meter hurdles

PARIS — When not dominating the 400-meter hurdles in a way unlike any woman in history before her, the American Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone writes poetry. It’s an apt hobby for the woman who continues to rewrite her sport’s record book.

The 25-year old McLaughlin-Levrone authored a stunning new chapter to her already decorated career Thursday by winning the Paris Olympic gold medal 400-meter hurdles final in a new world record of 50.37 seconds. She easily beat her top rival, Femke Bol of the Netherlands, to turn what was expected to be a duel into a runaway victory for the New Jersey native.

Even with Bol at 250 meters, McLaughlin-Levrone pulled far ahead as she entered her favorite point of the race — between the seventh and eighth hurdles of the 10-hurdle competition, which comes right as she comes off the final turn, into the last straightaway.

American Anna Cockrell won silver in 51.87, while Bol faded to third in 52.15. She appeared holding back tears after the finish, shaking her head, while McLaughlin-Levrone posted with an American flag. 

When McLaughlin-Levrone established her first world record in June 2021, she ran 51.90 seconds. Within 13 months, she lowered it to 51.46, then 51.41, then a 50.68 to win the 2022 world championship that Seb Coe, the president of track and field’s global governing body, described as “jaw dropping.” No woman had ever before broken the 51-second barrier.

After racing the open 400 meters last year and ending the year with a knee injury, she returned to the hurdles this spring to prepare for Paris and lowered her world record again to 50.65 at the U.S. Olympic trials, a time so jaw-dropping, again, that it would have finished sixth at the championships’ open 400 — the race that doesn’t include 10 hurdles. 

Yet in July, McLaughlin-Levrone had company. Bol became the second to dip under 51 seconds when she ran 50.95. 

With the exception of pole vaulter Mondo Duplantis, who set the world record for the ninth time en route to winning gold, no other track and field athletes had distanced themselves from their competition to the degree of McLaughlin-Levrone, who turned 25 the day before the final, and Bol, 24.

The American held a 2-0 lifetime record against Bol, but they had not raced against one another in two years. That scarcity, combined with the fast times each had produced while racing others, built the anticipation for Thursday’s showdown inside Stade de France. Ultimately, the final reasserted McLaughlin-Levrone’s control over the event by improving her winning streak to 25 consecutive races, a streak that began in August 2019.