Be it over hurdles or on the flat, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone proved once again she is irrepressible over one lap of the track.
The US athlete broke a 42-year-old championship record with the second-fastest 400m of all time at the World Athletics Championships Tokyo 25 to win gold on Thursday (18).
But it proved far from the time trial some might have anticipated as Olympic champion Mariledy Paulino made her rival work for the win. In doing so, for the first time in history two women dipped under 48 seconds in a single 400m race.
When McLaughlin-Levrone made the switch to the flat this season, she talked about stepping out of her comfort zone but she has looked at ease throughout the season in her new event.
And the final was no different. Her time of 47.78 – a North American record – suggests it is now only a matter of time before Marita Koch’s 40-year-old record (47.60) tumbles unless the 26-year-old opts to switch back to the hurdles where she is a two-time Olympic champion.
McLaughlin-Levrone admitted she was aware of those doubting her decision to have made the switch in the wake of the Paris Olympics.
"I knew there were a lot of people doubting me with making the switch from 400m hurdles to the flat 400m, but ultimately, I had faith in my training. I knew I had it in me," she said. "It definitely helped having Mariledy Paulino in the outer lane where I could see her. But I still had to get the work done. My coach told me to get out of the blocks as fast as possible, not to stay in it for long.”
Of her event future after these championships, she said: “We will need to talk about the schedule for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games. Maybe I could do both 400m and 400m hurdles. I would need some days off between those events and there is a tough field in both events."
Starting in lane five, she nervously bounced off one foot to another as she waited to take her marks while her husband Andre, a former NFL player, looked ill at ease watching from the stands.
On a much cooler night in Tokyo after the evening rain broke the humidity of the past few days, McLaughlin-Levrone was quickly up on Amber Anning in the late outside her. And, heading into the home straight, she had the lead and looked set to stretch that advantage to the finishing line.
But Paulino was not to be deterred by her opponent’s reputation as one of the greatest athletes of her generation – arguably in a similar bracket to Mondo Duplantis and Faith Kipyegon, who had shone in their respective events on previous nights in Tokyo.
The Dominican athlete pushed until her last stride but could not claw back the deficit as she herself clocked what is the third quickest time in history. Bahrain’s Salwa Eid Naser, meanwhile, set a season’s best with a 48.19 for the bronze.
But McLaughlin-Levrone – racing on the track where she won Olympic gold in the 400m hurdles in 2021 in a world record time – was just too good, having broken Sanya Richards-Ross’s US record on her way to the final before lowering Jarmila Kratochvilova’s championship best from Helsinki in 1983 by two tenths of a second.
The question now is: what lies in store for her in 2026? In the long term, her eyes are on a home Olympics in Los Angeles in 2028. She has previously made it clear she might yet return to hurdling once more with Femke Bol having admitted she missed having her as a benchmark to compete against in the discipline.
McLaughlin-Levrone had made a foray into the 400m flat before back in 2023 but injury prevented her from competing at the World Championships that year. On the evidence of this performance – a fourth world title in a third different event – and the fact another world record is now in touching distance will surely tempt her to stay with her new event.
Matt Majendie for World Athletics