“Definitely Uncomfortable”: Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone Makes Personal Confession Before Tokyo World Championships

Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone has long stood as the defining figure of the 400-meter hurdles, rewriting the record books with six world marks and back-to-back Olympic titles. At the Paris Games in 2024, she lowered her own standard to 50.37 seconds while collecting her second straight gold medal. Yet less than a year later, the reigning queen of the event surprised many by setting aside her trademark race for a different challenge.  

In Eugene on August 2, 2025, she stormed through the women’s 400 meters in 48.90 seconds to win the U.S. national title, missing the American record by only two-tenths of a second. That performance secured her place at the World Championships in Tokyo, where she will line up not in the hurdles, but in the flat 400. Her campaign in 2025 illustrates the seriousness of that endeavor. She opened her season with a 50.32 at the Grand Slam meet in Jamaica, then improved to 49.69 in Miami. By July, she had trimmed her time further to 49.43, which ranked her sixth globally at the time.

The choice, according to Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, has been deliberate rather than circumstantial. “I think it felt like the right thing to do just because I want to be the best well-rounded athlete I can be and this is one of those challenges that I think I had been putting off for myself,” she told Olympics.com before Worlds.

The transition, she admitted, was not without hesitation. “I wanted to step out in a different way and so think there was a bit of apprehension at first. Do we really want to take that step? But I want to compete and I want to compete well and against the best and push myself to be the best that I can be. So it definitely is uncomfortable but it’s rewarding to carve new paths.”

The 48.90 in Eugene placed her third fastest in the world this year, trailing only Bahrain’s Salwa Eid Naser at 48.67 and Olympic champion Marileidy Paulino at 48.81. This sets the stage for a fiercely contested one-lap showdown in Tokyo, where McLaughlin-Levrone enters as a contender rather than a presumed winner. For the 26-year-old, the flat 400 offers both opportunity and risk. Her personal best of 48.74, set at the 2023 U.S. Nationals, sits just 0.04 shy of the national record established by Sanya Richards-Ross in 2006.

Yet unlike the hurdles, where she has dominated by clear margins, the open race is crowded with athletes of near-identical ability. “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,” she told Athletics Weekly.

Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone decided to run the 400 flat at the World Athletics Championships instead of the hurdles due to her desire to be the best well rounded athlete she can be pic.twitter.com/sQ85VrlEeE

— Sydney McLaughlin fans (@sydmclaughlinle) September 7, 2025

Expectations inevitably follow her every step. Fans, conditioned by her record-breaking feats, wait to see whether another historic time will appear in Tokyo. McLaughlin-Levrone acknowledges the scrutiny but resists treating each race as a record attempt. “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,” she said. “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.”

As she prepares for the World Championships beginning September 13 at Japan National Stadium, McLaughlin-Levrone confronts perhaps the most demanding experiment of her career. She has moved from the comfort of being untouchable in the hurdles to testing herself against the world’s best in the flat 400. “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,” she explained. For an athlete accustomed to breaking barriers, this new pursuit is not a retreat but a declaration of intent, an attempt to expand her mastery across disciplines rather than remain confined to one. And now, going beyond her rivals, Sydney is eyeing a bigger goal in Tokyo.

Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone chases 400m immortality with sights set on world record

Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone had already proven herself as the finest technician the 400m hurdles had ever witnessed, yet in Tokyo, she made it clear that her aspirations were reaching beyond the rivalry that defined the flat 400m. While Marileidy Paulino and Salwa Eid Naser continued to dominate conversations about supremacy in the event, McLaughlin-Levrone spoke of something else entirely, her pursuit of the world record. “It’s a pretty old record. Someone will definitely break it when the time comes. Everything is possible; there is no limit,” she remarked, leaving no doubt that her ambitions extended past her immediate competitors.

Paris 2024 Olympics – Athletics – Women’s 400m Hurdles Final – Stade de France, Saint-Denis, France – August 08, 2024. Gold medallist Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone of United States celebrates after winning and setting a new world record. REUTERS/Aleksandra Szmigiel

Her performances placed her within striking distance of that ambition. With a personal best of 48.74 seconds, she had already entered the top dozen on the all-time list, less than two-tenths of a second away from joining the three fastest women in history. The most striking part, however, was her proximity to Marita Koch’s legendary 47.60, a mark that had stood since 1985 and remained the most untouchable record in women’s track. By her own admission, McLaughlin-Levrone focused not on rivals’ performances but on “running my own race,” a statement that reflected both her discipline and her resistance to distraction.

The context of her journey underscored the magnitude of her goal. Only a year earlier, a knee injury had interrupted her attempt to make the 400m her primary event, leaving Paulino to claim victory in Budapest while McLaughlin-Levrone settled for second place. Yet she returned to the track in Tokyo not to dwell on past defeats but to insist on pursuing the one record that has long been considered unreachable. In doing so, she set her narrative apart, less a contest against Paulino or Naser, and more a measured pursuit of history.

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