Hurdles world record-holder discusses the enormity of the task she has set herself in going for 400m gold in Tokyo

When Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone competes at a major championships, the world expects to see records being broken. On no fewer than six occasions, the American has produced the fastest time in history over the 400m hurdles – most recently with her command performance of 50.37 in winning her second consecutive Olympic gold in Paris last summer. 

At this month’s world championships in Tokyo she is returning to the scene of another of those historic runs – the 51.46 that took her to a maiden Olympic title in 2021. However, this time she will be tackling a different event. 

The 26-year-old has chosen, instead, to embrace a fresh challenge and focus all of her energies into the flat 400m. It is a task she is relishing, having first hoped to do it in 2023 before a knee injury derailed that plan, but it will be far from easy.

While McLaughlin-Levrone has been streets ahead when it comes to the hurdles, in the flat 400m she is the hunter rather than the hunted. Her time of 48.90 in winning the US trials was just two tenths of a second shy of the national record set by Sanya Richards-Ross 48.70 in 2006, but Bahrain’s former world champion Salwa Eid Naser (48.67), and reigning world and Olympic champion Marileidy Paulino of the Dominican Republic (48.81) have gone quicker in 2025.

The 400m world record of 47.60 was set in 1985 by East Germany’s Marita Koch but is a mark that is viewed with great suspicion given the nation’s systematic doping of their athletes at the time. Though McLaughlin-Levrone believes it can be beaten in future, she isn’t expecting it to be threatened in Tokyo. What she is expecting, however, is some strong competition from the likes of Paulino and Eid Naser, albeit the latter’s career has also been blighted by doping following her two-year ban in 2021 due to whereabouts failures.

“It’s a long-standing record for sure and a very fast time,” McLaughlin-Levrone said of Koch’s record, on a World Athletics media call. “I think, over the past few years, the performances that we have put on have created an appetite for records whenever I step on the track which, to a degree, I guess is fair. 

“But, at the same time, those come when they come and – especially an event like the 400m – takes time. It takes a lot of learning the event. There's always a question when I run: ‘Is she going to break something today? Is the American record going to fall? The world record?’ or whatever it is, which I think is exciting for the sport and fair for people to desire but I just want to be the best track athlete I can be and if that means it takes time to get faster in the 400m, if it takes years or whatever it is, I want to work to do that.”

McLaughlin-Levrone’s PB is 48.74 from two years ago but she feels that her work in 2025 has helped her to take a significant step forward. The problem for her is that the opposition isn’t standing still, either. 

“I really feel like this year that I've learned so much, and I'm excited to really put it all together in Tokyo and see what that can bring me,” she said. “But everyone's getting faster and I think we're all pushing each other towards truly running times that we haven't seen in a long time, or we've never seen before, and I think that's the whole point – competing with the best of the best and continuing to push the bounds of what's possible. And you can't do that unless you have really good competitors around you.”

And could 47.60 be beaten?

“I think, in time, if you have the right athlete in the right circumstances and everything going right then yes, I do,” she added. “I think it's a very hard time to run, but I think we’ve got to work on getting somebody under 48 seconds first of all, before we can even talk about 47.60.”

Given the work, and pain involved – “the 400m hurts a lot more than the hurdles” –  why do it to yourself? Why step away from being so clearly top of the tree in the 400m hurdles? Is it because she feels she has achieved all she can in that event? 

“There's still more I'd love to achieve in the hurdles,” insisted McLaughlin-Levrone. “The funny thing about track and field is there's always something you can do better, so I don't think that's it at all. 

“I do love to challenge myself in different ways and back in 2023 I didn't really get to fully fulfil that challenge to myself because of my knee injury keeping me out of the world championships, and so 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 and so this was definitely a huge challenge, a huge undertaking. 

“I've learned so much this season about the 400m, about myself, about how it's so different from the hurdles, but I've loved every second of it, and I think that challenge is what makes me a competitor.”

McLaughlin-Levrone’s appetite for mixing things up was very much in evidence during the Grand Slam Track series earlier this year, which saw her tackle not just the 400m hurdles and 400m but the 100m hurdles and flat 100m. Michael Johnson’s much-heralded project has been making less positive headlines in recent months, given its financial troubles and the fact that stars such as McLaughlin-Levrone are still waiting to be paid.

Asked if she felt that athletics needs these world championships to go well because of Grand Slam’s failings, or if the series had damaged the sport, the 2022 world champion responded: “I don't think so. I think track and field is still track and field. I think the unfortunate nature of that situation is exclusive to that situation. I don't think that at all reflects on the athletes or on our sport – I think it reflects on how that particular situation has been handled and I think people still love track and field regardless. 

“But I do pray that the world championships is great and that we can have an amazing experience. I think athletes will focus on the worlds and then those who are affected by what's taken place will deal with that in the following weeks and months.”