Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone Stands Alone as Icon after Latest Hurdles World Record

Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone doesn’t train for hurdles. She trains for history.

As in making it — again and again.

In running the 400-meter hurdles Sunday in her FIFTH world record at that event since 2021, the 24-year-old phenom awed the track world.

A “ticketed” Olympic Trials crowd of 12,243 roared as they saw a trackside timer resolve from 50.67 (a one-hundredth of a second improvement on SML’s previous best) to 50.65 seconds.

Another reporter agreed with me that she’s a “generational talent” like Edwin Moses in the 1970s and 1980s.

But in several stat categories, McLaughlin-Levrone leaves Moses in the dust. Edwin set four world records in the 400 hurdles between July 1976 and August 1983. SML now has five WRs to her name.

And Moses lowered the men’s world record by “only” eight-tenths of a second (taking John Akii-Bua’s Olympic title time of 47.82 down to 47.02).

But the Tokyo Olympic champion improved the 52.16 WR by American Dalilah Muhammad by 1.5 seconds over time. (So Moses lowered the record by 1.67% while SML did it by 2.90%.)

Her latest stunner was so fast that the mark would have put her sixth in the flat 400-meter dash a week ago — a race without 10 30-inch hurdles. In other words, SML would have beaten three women in the Olympic Trials 400-meter final.

(Without hurdles, SML is assumed a threat to the existing 400 world record of 47.60, set by East Germany’s Marita Koch nearly 40 years ago.)

McLaughlin-Levrone was so fast in the last 100 meters, the Track & Field News message board was almost speechless.

One called her homestretch sprint “simply off the charts.”

“When mere mortals are clawing their way to the finish and decelerating like they’ve hit a wall, Sydney is running it like she’s in a 100m race,” said the posting. “Just phenomenal — she truly must be from another universe.”

One wag complained SML was too easy on herself.

“Why did Sydney not run the 400m sprint at these trials? She had a real chance to win both races in Paris and had time in between the end of the 400m event and the start of the hurdles to rest,” said the comment. “She really missed out on doing something special in Paris because her closing speed looked like Secretariat [at] the Belmont.”

SML’s new coach — the legendary Bobby Kersee — had been criticized for holding Sydney out of the 2023 world championships in Budapest. (It was said she had a knee injury.) And he was further knocked for limiting SML’s competitions this season.

Sunday’s race was only her fourth long hurdles contest of the season.

All that was blown away in 50.65 seconds.

In bettering her own WR from two years ago at the same stadium in Eugene, Oregon, SML even seemed stronger after the race — not appearing totally spent and delaying the trek to the WR signboard for photos in 2022.

The Bigfoot mascot at the Oregon22 world meet held a sign next to her that said: “World records are my favorite food.”

On a night when dozens of athletes set personal records, the Eugene crowd went home full after the final event of the meet stuffed them with a buffet of delights.

On to Paris — and another delicious repast.