Athletics: A superstar among “also ran”: Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone

It’s a paradox: the athletics season comes to an end this Friday evening with the final of the Diamond League in Brussels. The overall winners are being sought in 16 men’s and women’s disciplines, each of whom will take home $30,000 in prize money and secure a starting place for the 2025 World Cup in Tokyo. But the most eagerly awaited star of the meeting starts outside the rankings: Sydney McLaughlin-Levronethe 400-meter hurdles sprinter from the USA, Olympic champion and world record holder, is only taking part in two invitational races in Brussels. And it could still embarrass the competition.

Already on Tuesday, meeting director Kim Gevaert presented the capricious US sprinter at one press conference the excited athletics reporters. With a beaming smile, the 25-year-old from Dunellen, New Jersey, sat on the podium and announced that, above all, she wanted to have fun in Brussels again at the end of the season. She was “grateful” to be able to take part in the traditional meeting in Belgium.

»I hope to set a personal record on both routes.«

Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone Hurdle sprinter

They are also grateful in Brussels: the sprinter, who has been married to ex-football star Andre Levrone since 2022, usually makes herself extremely rare. In recent years she has only competed in the really big races like the World Cup or the Olympics, or in the US Trials, where you qualify for big competitions.

However, her record is breathtaking: Since 2019, she has not lost a single 400 meter hurdles race. And she set a world record in six of the last ten hurdles finals that she has competed in since 2021, including at the 2021 Olympics (51.46 seconds), the final of the 2022 World Championships (50.68), at the US Trials in June 2024 (50.65). For comparison: Skadi Schier from Berlin won the German championship title over 400 meters in 52.36 seconds – flat, without hurdles.

Million-dollar sponsorship

The woman, who receives an impressive $1.5 million per year from her supplier New Balance, has not taken part in any of the 14 Diamond League meetings so far in 2024 and is therefore not even eligible to start the season finale in Brussels with a wild card. In order for the exceptional athlete to even get on the track King Baudouin Stadium The organizers have put two races on the program “in honor of Sydney’s remarkable achievements, including her unforgettable 400-meter hurdles world record in Paris.”

Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone set the world record at the Olympics in Paris in August to 50.37 seconds. She also believes that undercutting the 50-second sound barrier is possible, as she told the Belgian newspaper on Tuesday »The Latest News« revealed: “But then it has to be the perfect run.” In Brussels, however, she starts on the unusual 400 and 200 meters: “I don’t run the 400 or 200 meters often, but I hope to set a personal record on both distances.”

With a personal best, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone could embarrass the assembled world elite, especially in the flat 400 meters: On Friday the starting signal for the invitation race over 400 meters will be fired at 7:53 p.m., before the 400 meter specialists compete for the diamond at 8:04 p.m -League crown sprint. It is quite possible that the ambitious American will be faster than most of the specialists around the Dominican Olympic champion Marileidy Paulino, who won gold in Paris in 48.17 seconds, an Olympic record after all.

47.7 seconds in the relay

Because McLaughlin-Levrone also has what it takes to make a big splash on the flat stadium circuit: When she competed in the 400 meters as a test at the beginning of June, she ran within four hundredths of the US record: 48.74 seconds. And in the gold run of the US relay team for the 4×400 meter victory in Paris, she sprinted in second place to the fastest time of all finalists: 47.7 seconds Final report recorded for McLaughlin-Levrone. Measured at a flying start, of course, but it is still a time that makes you sit up and take notice: the ancient world record set by Marita Koch from Rostock in 1985 is 47.60 seconds.

The American’s dominance raises suspicion in a sport that is as plagued by doping as athletics. Especially since the foam-padded super spikes, which allow the foot to spring back from the track more quickly, are also available to the competition. After all, like Jamaica’s super sprinter Usain Bolt, she was already noticed as an exceptional talent in her youth. In 2014, she set a world record for 14-year-olds in the 100 meter hurdles with 13.34 seconds. At the age of 16, Sydney McLaughlin already qualified for the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro in the 400 meter hurdles, where she narrowly missed the final as fifth in the semi-finals.

Coach suspected of doping

But on the other hand, she has been training under Bob Kersee since 2020: The 70-year-old coach has brought countless US sprint stars to top performances. Since the 1984 Summer Games, at least one Olympic champion has always come from his training group, which included, for example, his wife Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Florence Griffith-Joyner, Gail Devers and Allyson Felix.

A number of them were suspected of doping. Florence Griffith-Joyner, who still holds the world records in the 100 meters (10.49 seconds) and 200 meters (21.34), died in 1998 – ten years after her three Olympic victories in Seoul – of what experts believe was an epileptic seizure could have been a result of anabolic steroid doping. Former athletes accused Kersee of giving them steroids. However, nothing was ever proven for Kersee.

Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone praises her coach. “He developed me further as a person and as an athlete and challenged me in ways that I would not have thought possible,” she enthused told the AP news agency before the Paris Games.

After her Olympic victory thanked the pious American, however, even higher authorities. Running is the gift that God gave her: “By using it to the best of my ability and humbly drawing attention to him, he will be praised.”

Whether with or without earthly hurdles: McLaughlin-Levrone will give it her all again on Friday and Saturday at the end of the season.