AAmerican hurdle phenom Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone won her second consecutive Olympic gold medal in the 400m event, breaking her own world record in the Olympic final for the second time in a row. She crossed the finish line in 50.37 seconds, two places ahead of her rival, Femke Bol of the Netherlands, in the final race of the night.
The hype for the McLaughlin-Levrone/Bol fight reached a fever pitch early in this race. The Stade de France fans were dressed more orange than usual, while thousands of Dutch fans lined up to cheer on Bol, whose impressive kick in the final lap of the mixed 4 x 400 m relay on Saturday night, which gave the Dutch team gold, seemed to send a message to the McLaughlin-Levrone camp. Bol—whose delicious shrill voice received its fair share of attention – it was a threat.
McLaughlin-Levrone, however, ended up rejecting the idea. And she will almost definitely run the 4X400 relay next Saturday night, like she did in Tokyo. American women are the favorites in this race; a victory would give McLaughlin his fourth career Olympic gold medal.
The Dunelin, NJ native’s victory vindicated the strategy of keeping McLaughlin-Levrone out of the mixed relay and re-running an ambitious attempt to run both the hurdles and flat events. Since McLaughlin-Levrone ignored last year’s world championships with “a little knee problem,” she said at the time, defending gold in this race, tonight at the Paris Olympics, was the overriding goal.
Like Katie Ledecky in the pool, McLaughlin-Levrone is a more muted presence on the track than, say, Noah Lyles, who won bronze in the 200m race earlier in the evening despite having COVID-19. “Sydney McLaughlin has a quiet confidence,” Felix wrote of McLaughlin-Levrone in TIME in 2021, “that demands her attention.” (McLaughlin and her husband, former NFL player Andre Levrone Jr., were married in 2022.) She wrote a book released in January— Far beyond gold: fleeing from fear to faith— which detailed his struggles to live up to expectations. She doesn’t seem to particularly enjoy giving interviews or wanting commercials. “I love to sleep,” she enthused on a Women’s Health cover story published before the Games.
His talent, however, appears on the track almost always. This repeat Olympic title took years to prepare. McLaughlin is the daughter of runners; Her father, Willie, reached the 400m semifinals at the 1984 Olympic Trials, and her mother, Mary, ran in high school. “Athletics has always been a part of our lives,” McLaughlin-Levrone told Olympic Channel Podcast. At the 2016 Rio Olympics, McLaughlin, then 16, became the youngest athlete to make the U.S. track and field team since 1972. In 2017, McLaughlin became the first person to be named Gatorade Athlete of the Year High School for two consecutive years. She spent a year at the University of Kentucky before turning pro.
Now, every time McLaughlin-Levrone hits the starting blocks, she is a threat to take her sport to new limits. Whether she’s facing Bol or every other challenger, mark Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone in your calendar and embrace her greatness.
This story originally appeared on Time.com read the full story
