Sydney Mclaughlin-Levrone can only have just turned 25, but standing on the starting line in the Olympic stadium is nothing new for her.
As a 16-year-old, the New Jersey native broke the junior world record in the 400-meter hurdles with a time of 54.15 at the 2016 U.S. Olympic Trials. That punched her ticket to the Rio Games, where she reached the semifinals. She came back even stronger at the Tokyo Games. won the 400-meter hurdles, edging American teammate Dalilah Muhammad by 0.12 seconds. He was also part of the gold 4x400m relay team in Tokyo with Muhammad, Alison Felix and Athing Mu.
And in the run-up to the Paris Games, McLaughlin-Levrone kept bringing it. She raised it new world record in the 400-meter hurdles — an incredible 50.65 seconds — at the 2024 Olympic Trials in Eugene, Oregon, on June 30. And in Paris, she not only won gold, but broke her own world record in the process. Overall, it has already lowered the global mark six times.
However, there is more to McLaughlin-Levrone than meets the eye on the track. She is outspoken about her faith, has a fascinating family background and is on a mission to further advance the sport of sprinting. Here are nine things to know about the world’s fastest 400m hurdler.
1. McLaughlin-Levrone comes from a family of talented runners.
Everyone in McLaughlin-Levrone’s immediate family has competed in track. Her father, Willie McLaughlin, was a three-time NCAA All-American in the 400 meters and nearly became an Olympian himself in 1984. He was inducted into the Manhattan Athletic Hall of Fame in 1997. Mary McLaughlin, Sydney’s mom, ran on the track team of boys in high school, as People exhibitions.
McLaughlin-Levrone and her three siblings had an active childhood. “Athletics has always been a part of our lives,” McLaughlin-Levrone said in an interview with Podcast of the Olympic Channel. But not everything ran all the time. “Our parents let us choose what we wanted to do,” she said, and she was involved in basketball, soccer and dance, but, she added, “for all of us, track stood out.”
Of course, it was fueled by some healthy sibling rivalry. Taylor’s brother ran Division I track at the University of Michigan and won silver at the Under-20 World Championships in the 400-meter hurdles (apparently a popular race among the McLaughlins).
2. She was inspired by Sanya Richard-Ross.
McLaughlin-Levrone caught the Olympic bug when she was nine years old. He vividly remembers watching Sanya Richards-Ross compete at the 2008 Beijing Games, where the American sprinter won bronze in the 400m and closed a huge gap in the 4x400m relay for gold. As McLaughlin-Levrone said on the podcast, “I remember turning to my mom and saying, ‘I want to do this.’
3. Qualifying for her first Olympics was a surprise.
By high school, it was clear that McLaughlin-Levrone was ahead of other runners her age, but the extent of her talent wasn’t fully apparent until her first Olympic trials before the 2016 Games in Rio. “When we went to the trials in 2016, we were really going for the experience,” McLaughlin-Levrone told the Podcast of the Olympic Channel. Just 16 at the time, she recalls thinking there was “no way” she would make the U.S. team in the 400-meter hurdles, which would require at least a third-place finish at the Trials. He didn’t just qualified for the team—he also took fourth place by over half a second (important in a 54-second race!).
4. The University of Kentucky was her home away from home for a year.
After her outstanding high school career, McLaughlin-Levrone had a choice between going straight to the pros or running in the NCAA. She decided to attend the University of Kentucky in 2017, where she spent a year that she described as “very defining” for her athletic career. She was exposed to more intense training and higher expectations from the coaches, which she said, “really gave me an inside look at what it’s like to be a professional,” as she told the Podcast of the Olympic Channel.
5. Candy is her race fuel of choice.
A self-proclaimed “candy connoisseur,” McLaughlin-Levrone credits at least part of her speed to a prerace meal of gummy bears, Jolly Ranchers and Starbursts. “If there’s candy in my house, it won’t stay for more than 24 hours,” she told one interview with GQ. If we could all break world records in a bag of gummy bears, McLaughlin-Levrone would face a lot more competition.
6. Add “published author” to her credits.
As if Olympic medals weren’t enough of an accomplishment, McLaughlin-Levrone also released her first book in January. the book, Far Beyond Gold: Running from Fear to Faith, describes how McLaughlin-Levrone has managed the fear and mental health struggles she faces as a professional runner. In it, she discusses how her faith helped her come to terms with her identity and deal with perfectionism, anxiety and impostor syndrome.
