Sydney Mclaughlin-Levrone may only have just turned 25, but standing on the start line at the Olympic stadium is nothing new for her.
As a 16-year-old, the New Jersey native broke the 400-meter hurdle world junior record with a time of 54.15 at the 2016 US Olympic Trials. That punched her ticket to the Rio Games, where she made it to the semifinals. She returned even stronger at the Tokyo Games; she won the 400-meter hurdles, outkicking American teammate Dalilah Muhammad by 0.12 seconds. She was also a member of the gold-winning 4×400-meter relay team in Tokyo with Muhammad, Alison Felix, and Athing Mu.
And in the lead-up to the Paris Games, McLaughlin-Levrone continued to bring it. She set the new world record in the 400-meter hurdles—a blistering 50.65 seconds—at the 2024 Olympic Trials in Eugene, Oregon, on June 30. And in Paris, she not only won gold, but shattered her own world record in the process. All in all, she has already lowered the world mark six times.
There’s more to McLaughlin-Levrone than what we see on the track, though. She’s outspoken about her faith, has a fascinating family background, and she’s on a mission to push the sport of sprinting further. Here are nine things to know about the world’s fastest 400-meter hurdler.
1. McLaughlin-Levrone comes from a family of talented runners.
Everyone in McLaughlin-Levrone’s immediate family has competed on the track. Her dad, Willie McLaughlin, was a three-time NCAA All-American in the 400-meter and nearly made the Olympic team himself in 1984. He was inducted into the Manhattan College Athletic Hall of Fame in 1997. Mary McLaughlin, Sydney’s mom, ran on the boys’ track team in high school, as People reports.
McLaughlin-Levrone and her three siblings had an active childhood. “Track and field has always been part of our lives,” McLaughlin-Levrone said in an interview with the Olympic Channel Podcast. But it wasn’t all running all the time. “Our parents let us choose what we wanted to do,” she said, and she dabbled in basketball, soccer, and dance, but, she added, “for all of us, track kind of stood out.”
Naturally, she was fueled by some healthy sibling competition. Her brother Taylor ran Division I track at the University of Michigan and won silver at the World Junior under-20 championships in the 400-meter hurdles (apparently a popular event among the McLaughlins).
2. She was inspired by Sanya Richard-Ross.
McLaughlin-Levrone caught the Olympic bug when she was nine years old. She distinctly remembers watching Sanya Richards-Ross compete at the 2008 Beijing Games, where the American sprinter won bronze in the 400-meter and closed a huge gap in the 4×400-meter relay for gold. As McLaughlin-Levrone said on the podcast, “I remember turning to my mom and being like, ‘I want to do that.’”
3. Qualifying for her first Olympics was a surprise.
By middle school, it was clear that McLaughlin-Levrone was ahead of other runners her age, but the extent of her talent wasn’t fully on display until her first Olympic trials ahead of the 2016 Games in Rio. “When we went to the trials in 2016, we were really just going for the experience,” McLaughlin-Levrone told the Olympic Channel Podcast. Just 16 at the time, she remembers thinking that there was “no way” she would qualify for Team USA in the 400-meter hurdles, which would require at least a third-place finish at the Trials. She didn’t just qualify for the team—she also beat the fourth-place finisher by over half a second (which is significant in a 54-second race!).
4. The University of Kentucky was her home away from home for a year.
After her standout 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 she described as “very pivotal” for her athletic career. She was exposed to more intense training and higher expectations from coaches, which she said, “really gave me an inside look into what it’s like to be a professional,” as she told the Olympic Channel Podcast.
5. Candy is her race fuel of choice.
A self-proclaimed “candy connoisseur,” McLaughlin-Levrone credits at least some of her speed to a prerace meal of gummy bears, Jolly Ranchers, and Starbursts. “If there’s candy in my house, it’s not staying for more than 24 hours,” she said in an interview with GQ. If only we could all break world records on a bag of gummy bears, McLaughlin-Levrone would be facing a lot more competition.
6. Add “published author” to her accolades.
As if Olympic medals aren’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 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.
