MANCHESTER, England (Reuters) -Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone will be making a bold shift at this month's World Athletics Championships by trading her signature 400 metres hurdles event for the flat 400 in a move reflecting her competitive spirit and insatiable hunger for growth.
The 26-year-old American has already rewritten the hurdles record books, with six world records in her primary event and two Olympic and one world titles.
But this season she ditched the event for the flat 400, where she is not
the runaway favourite. It has been a learning curve, but McLaughlin-Levrone said she had the patience required to chase greatness in a new discipline.
"Over the past few years, the performances (I've) put on have created an appetite for records whenever I step on the track," she told reporters on a video call this week.
"But honestly, I just want to be the best track athlete I can be. If that means it takes time to get faster in the 400, if it takes years, I want to work to do that."
McLaughlin-Levrone's journey into the flat 400m began in 2023, but a knee injury saw her withdraw from the world championships that year. She has returned with renewed focus and appreciation for the nuances of the race.
"It's definitely something I knew I wanted to come back to. I've loved the idea of stepping out into different events, challenging myself, pushing myself, seeing if I can be the best well-rounded athlete I can before I hang up my spikes," she said.
"This was definitely a huge challenge, and I've learned so much this season — about the 400, about myself, about how it's so different from the hurdles. But I've loved every second of it."
Asked how the flat 400 is different, she laughed and said it hurts more.
"The 400 hurdles is such a cadence race, that even though you feel like you're sprinting very fast, you're still on a stride pattern," she explained. "Whereas the 400 is really just a sprint."
WORLD CLASS
McLaughlin-Levrone's times in the 400m are world class.
Her 48.90 seconds at the U.S. championships was two tenths of a second shy of the American record held by Sanya Richards-Ross and the third fastest globally this year behind Salwa Eid Naser of Bahrain (48.67), and Marileidy Paulino of the Dominican Republic (48.81).
The world record, however, is in another stratosphere altogether. East German Marita Koch ran a jaw-dropping 47.6 in 1985 in a record cloaked in suspicion as East Germany were known to be systematically doping their athletes.
"In time, if you have the right athlete in the right circumstances and everything going right? Yes, I do (think someone could break it)," McLaughlin-Levrone said.
"But we've got to work on getting somebody under 48 seconds first before we can even talk about 47.6."
McLaughlin-Levrone is returning to the same Tokyo stadium where she won her first Olympic gold in 2021, adding another layer of meaning to these worlds.
"It was a very special moment," she said. "In a time where COVID was trapping so many people inside, I think the Olympics still being able to happen was inspiration for us to get back out there, to get back to working hard towards our dreams."
(Reporting by Lori Ewing; Editing by Ken Ferris)
