In the hurdles world before Sydney McLaughlin, it took years to shave fractions of seconds off records, and winning races didn’t always mean rewriting history.
This once-in-a-lifetime athlete is obliterating that mindset as quickly as she’s destroying the records she sets again and again and again.
For the fourth time in 13 months, the 22-year-old McLaughlin set the world record. On Friday, she ran the 400-meter hurdles at world championships in 50.68 seconds.
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She shattered her old mark by 0.73 seconds, a ridiculous number for a race of this distance and an amount of time that, in the world before McLaughlin, it had taken 33 years to trim.
“It’s unreal,” McLaughlin said in the post-race interview on the track.
Also unreal: The 1.59-second margin between her and second-place finisher Femke Bol. And that McLaughlin’s main rival, Dalilah Muhammad, finished third in 53.13 seconds, a time that would’ve won the world title with ease a mere seven years ago.
After McLaughlin received her gold medal and listened to “The Star-Spangled Banner,” World Athletics President Sebastian Coe handed her a $100,000 check — the prize for breaking the record at worlds. This marked the fourth straight major race in which she’s bettered the mark.
On a clear, perfect, 72-degree night at Hayward Stadium, McLaughlin left Bol and Muhammad behind by the 150-meter mark. By the time the American reached the final curve, it was clear this would strictly be a race against the clock.
“Honestly, I just wanted to run and go for it,” she said. “That last 100 really hurt.”
When she finished, she bent to the ground, looked at the scoreboard and said, “That’s great, that’s great.” She clutched her knees and smiled. A minute later, the mascot, Legend the Bigfoot, photo bombed her while holding a sign saying: “World records are my favorite food.”
The 400-hurdles record of 52.34, held by Yuliya Pechonkina of Russia, had sat on the books for 16 years when Muhammad, not McLaughlin, lowered it to 52.20 at U.S. championships in Iowa in 2019.
Back then, Muhammad’s coach, Boogie Johnson, said there had long been the thought that the Russian’s record seemed “a little soft” and ripe for a takeover. Muhammad broke it again, at 52.16, at world championships in 2019.
That was a race in which McLaughlin lost by a mere 0.07, and started thinking about making changes.
Since connecting with coach Bobby Kersee, she has broken the record at last year’s Olympic trials (51.90), the Olympics (51.46) and nationals last month. (51.41). Now, this — a trip below the 51-second barrier that hardly anyone was thinking about a mere five years ago.
McLaughlin has set three of those four records on this very track at Hayward Stadium. She has turned what used to be the best one-on-one showdown in sports — her vs. Muhammad — into a one-woman show for the time being.
The big question: how?
Some answers lie in the mix of improved track surfaces, new technology in the spikes that hurdling great Edwin Moses compared to “having trampolines on your shoes,” and a new coaching regimen employed by Kersee in the run-up to last year’s Olympics.
But mostly, pure talent.
Another way to look at McLauglin’s dominance: Traversing the track while leaping 10 hurdles took her only 1.57 seconds longer than Shaunae Miller-Uibo of the Bahamas needed to win the 400-flat, held about a half-hour before the main event.
Like McLaughlin, Miller-Uibo has dominated her race over the past year-plus. Like McLaughlin, this was Miller-Uibo’s first world championship. She beat Marileidy Paulino of the Dominican Republic by 0.49 seconds for a repeat of the same 1-2 finish as in Tokyo last year.
In the men’s race, American Michael Norman won the world title in 44.29 seconds, pulling away from 2012 Olympic champion Kirani James over the final 80 meters.
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