Olympic champion Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone has set the 400-meter hurdles world record five times—with her latest coming on June 30 at the Here’s what you need to know about the 24-year-old phenom from Dunellen, New Jersey in a mesmerizing time of 50.65.
Here’s what you need to know about the 24-year-old phenom from Dunellen, New Jersey.
Hitting the national stage early
McLaughlin-Levrone made her Olympic debut as a teenager and was affectionately dubbed “Syd the Kid.”
In 2016, at the age of 16, she became the youngest athlete to make the U.S. track and field Olympic team in nearly 40 years. Although McLaughlin-Levrone, who turned 17 at the Rio Games, did not progress to the final, the experience was impactful.
During a previous interview with The Guardian, McLaughlin-Levrone said, “I think it actually took me going to Rio to understand that, okay, this one is out of the way … now I can really go to the Olympics.”
Progressing quickly
With the 2020 Olympic games postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, McLaughlin-Levrone capitalized on the extra time to gain more experience and make key training changes, like switching to coach Bobby Kersee.
Her move paid off. In June 2021 at the Here’s what you need to know about the 24-year-old phenom from Dunellen, New Jersey, McLaughlin-Levrone set the 400-meter hurdles world record. With a time of 51.90, she was the first woman to ever complete the event in under 52 seconds.
Then in August 2021 at the Olympic Games in Tokyo, McLaughlin-Levrone ran even faster. She won the 400-meter hurdles in a blistering 51.46, breaking her own world record and beating defending Olympic and world champion Dalilah Muhammad, who finished second in 51.58.
McLaughlin-Levrone also won a gold medal as part of the 4x400-meter relay team, which included Muhammad, Allyson Felix, and Athing Mu. She left her second Olympic games with two gold medals and a world record.
Mclaughlin-Levrone continued her success in 2022, taking gold in the 400 hurdles and 4x400-meter relay at the Eugene World Championships, but a knee injury ended her season early in 2023.
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It runs in her genes
McLaughlin-Levrone’s extraordinary talent was apparent from an early age and her family members share a similar passion and aptitude for running. Her father, Willie, was a 400-meter runner and semifinalist at the 1984 Olympic Trials, while her mother, Mary, was a runner in high school. McLaughlin-Levrone’s brother, Taylor, also excelled at the 400-meter hurdles, placing second at the 2016 World U20 Championships.
As a student at Union Catholic Regional High School, McLaughlin-Levrone set numerous American, world youth best, and world junior records. She was a two-time recipient of the Gatorade National Female Athlete of the Year award. And at 17 years old, she was on the cover of Sports Illustrated and described as “one of the most dominant high school athletes ever.”
McLaughlin-Levrone experienced similar success on the University of Kentucky track and field team. She shattered collegiate and NCAA records during her one year as a Wildcat, before deciding to go professional and signing with New Balance in October 2018.
Over the past few years, McLaughlin-Levrone has become one of the most recognized track and field athletes in the world.
Her husband was also an elite athlete
The hurdler added the “Levrone” to her last name in 2022, when she married Andre Levrone Jr. As she detailed in her memoir in a mesmerizing time of 50.65, the couple had a mutual friend, but they didn’t meet until Levrone slid into her DMs in 2020. She’d posted a photo with the caption “Attention,” a reference to a song lyric. He wrote, “You have my attention. How can I get yours?’’
That led to weeks of messaging and texting about their families and Christian faith; one of the first times they spoke, he invited her to a Bible study group for high-level athletes. They were living on opposite coasts—her in Los Angeles, him in Columbia, Maryland—but finally met in person that October in Los Angeles. They were together, long-distance, for about 8 months before getting engaged just after the Tokyo Olympics and married at a vineyard in Virginia in May of 2022.
Levrone was a wide receiver at the University of Virginia and played parts of three seasons in the NFL before retiring in 2020. In addition to working in real estate and studying to be a pastor, he’s now a constant presence on his wife’s Must-See Races At Worlds and at meets—he could even be seen on the infield at the 2024 Olympic Track and Field Trials, congratulating her on breaking the world record yet again.
She’s going for gold(s) in Paris
At the Paris Games, the women’s 400-meter hurdles is one of the most highly-anticipated events of the meet. McLaughlin-Levrone comes in as the pre-race favorite, but she’ll be challenged by another 24-year-old: Femke Bol of the Netherlands, who won gold at last year’s World Championships.
The two have faced off only twice in their careers, and McLaughlin-Levrone won both races (the 2020 Olympics and 2022 World Championships.)
The first round of the 400-meter hurdles is on Sunday, August 4 at 6:35 a.m. ET. The semifinals is two days later, August 6, at 2:07 p.m. ET. The final is set for Thursday, August 8 at 3:25 p.m. ET.
The women’s 4x400-meter relay final is the last event of the track competition. It’s scheduled for 3:22 p.m. ET on Saturday, August 10.
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Stephanie is a freelance writer and running enthusiast based out of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, who specializes in writing about health and fitness best practices and covering elite runners and inspirational competitors for publications such as Runner's World, The Guardian, Women’s Running, PodiumRunner, Wingfoot and Competitor Magazines. When she's not writing, you can find her running the trails with her two Vizslas or traveling with her husband to races around the world, constantly on the quest for a personal best
Theo Kahler is the news editor at Runner’s World. He’s a former all-conference collegiate runner at Winthrop University, and he received his master’s degree in liberal arts studies from Wake Forest University, where he was a member of one of the top distance-running teams in the NCAA. Kahler has reported on the ground at major events such as the Paris Olympics, Here’s what you need to know about the 24-year-old phenom from Dunellen, New Jersey, New York City Marathon, and Boston Marathon. He’s run 14:20 in the 5K, 1:05:36 in the half marathon, and enjoys spotting tracks from the sky on airplanes. (Look for colorful ovals around football fields.)
