At just 22 years old, Sydney McLaughlin is the 2020 Tokyo Olympics gold medalist and the current world and Olympic records holder in the 400m hurdles. She was the first woman to break the 52-second barrier when she broke the world record of 51.90 at the 2020 USA Olympic trials.
On Friday night (July 22, 2022), she set the record again for the fourth time in 13 months when she ran 50.68 at the world track and field championships in Eugene, OR. She absolutely obliterated the previous record by 0.73 seconds.
She is today, arguably, the most dominating female athlete in the world. You have to watch it to truly appreciate it, and specifically watch how easily her body does it and how far ahead of the competition she is.
To put the 400m hurdles into perspective, it’s not an easy race. The short sprints such as the 100m and even the 200m get a lot of coverage, and the 100m winner is even crowned “the world’s fastest man” and “world’s fastest woman”. While that might be the case, I’d argue the men and women running the 400m hurdles might be the world’s greatest athletes.
To the untrained eye, it’s just one lap around the track. Easy enough, right? Perhaps. But there’s no room to let-up and get tired at the end — you will lose if you do. The best runners always leave a little bit of extra kick for the final push. So you essentially have to sprint all the way around the track, finishing at a pace that’s even faster then when you started.
On top of that, you have to leap over a hurdle every 10m (that’s a total of ten hurdles for the math majors out there). The “intermediate hurdles” in the 400 distance are lower than those in the 100m hurdle distance. They are set at 33 inches tall for the women and 36 inches tall for the men. So every 10 meters you have to hurdle an object that is basically waist high while running as fast as you possibly can. Without slowing down. Still sound easy? I encourage you to give it a try.
For those who train every day for these events, they know exactly how many steps it takes from one hurdle to the next. They know when to lead with their right foot or their left. They know every inch of every lane and when to be on the inside part of the lane or the outside. It’s a science that you perfect only through repetition and great coaching.
Anyway, more about the extraordinary Sydney McLaughlin:
- She turns 23 on August 7th
- She grew up in Scotch Plains, New Jersey and starred at the University of Kentucky before turning professional
- She has school, state, national and world records to her credit
- She has won world championships in both the 400m hurdles and the 4 x 400m relays
- Her first national championship came in the 400m hurdles in 2014 when she was just a high school freshman; she set the meet record for 9th graders and went on to set the New Balance Nationals meet record for 10th graders, 11th graders, and 12th graders in each of the next three years. All four grade records still stand today, including the meet record of 53.82 which she set as a high school senior.
- Sorry fellas… in May of this year she married Andre Levrone Jr. who, as a former NFL wide receiver, is quite fast himself. I can only imagine how athletic their kids will be someday.
- Follow her on Instagram at @sydneymclaughlin16 and on Twitter at @GoSydGo
- You can read more about her on her Wikipedia page and also at her Team USA profile page.
