Paris Olympics 400m hurdles champion Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone was crowned the 2024 Female Track Athlete of the year to underline her achievement and record-breaking heroics.
The American sprinter and hurdler has made the specialty her own since 2019 when she first bagged silver at the World Championships but 2024 feels special for her 25-year-old.
What is amazing is how McLaughlin-Levrone continues to orbit above her peers and history. Not only was her 50.37 seconds time in the final a new world record, but her back-to-back gold after Tokyo 2020 in 2021 also makes her the first woman to successfully defend her Olympic title in the race.
She is the first track athlete to break four world records in the same event and set four world records during 13 months. The New Jersey native was part of the winning 4x400m relay squad for Team USA to bring her gold-medal haul to four across her first two Olympics.
To her credit, McLaughlin-Levrone has not lost a 400m hurdles race since 2019, setting herself apart as a rare breed.
McLaughlin-Levrone, who missed the 2023 World Championships due to injury, competed in her first 400m race of the season at the 2024 USATF New York Grand Prix on June 9 with a then-world-leading time of 48.75 s, just 0.01 s slower than her personal best. Having led the race early on, she powered ahead at 200 metres to beat the second-place finisher, Talitha Diggs, by over two seconds.
On June 30, at the 2024 Olympic Trials, McLaughlin-Levrone would go on to break her own 400m hurdles world record once more, finishing with a time of 50.65 s and qualifying for the Paris Olympics.
