Tokyo – Sydney McLaughlin -Levrone became the first woman in almost 40 years to break 48 seconds in the 400 meters, with 47.78 in a historically fast race at the world championships on Thursday.
Driven by second place, Marileidy Paulino, who achieved a 47.98 on the piece of rain in Tokyo, McLaughlin-Levrone won his first world title in the 400 apartment after dominating obstacles over the past four years.
The second and third fastest moments in the history of this trail race only on 47.60 by Marita Koch of East Germany, takes place on October 6, 1985 – one of the last remaining vestiges on the track of an oriental block doping system which was exposed for years after its end.
Third place, Salwa Eid Naser, has achieved 48.19, a period that would have won the last two world championships. No one had come in half a second from the Koch brand to this race.
“You don’t run something like that without incredible women push you there,” said McLaughlin-Levrone.
When she crossed the line, McLaughlin-Levrone looked at the chronometer and then put her hands on her head in apparent shock.
In the approach of the worlds, she insisted that women had to think about defeating 48 before continuing what was once considered an inaccessible world record.
Now this record is trembling. Much will depend on what the sprinter in a most accomplished turn in America decides to do in the coming years. She broke the world record of 400 hedges six times, more recently at the Olympic Games last year, where she lowered it to 50.37 seconds.
Thursday’s race was on the same song where McLaughlin -Levrone established his second world record hedges at the 2021 Olympic Games. It was a very different scene this time – with fans in the stands, shouting while she was bypassing the oval, then headed for the trunction at home in a tight battle with Paulino who was not in the last 30 meters.
“At the end of the day, it was not my title to keep, it was up to me to win,” said McLaughlin-Levrone. “Bobby uses boxing terms all the time. He said,” You have to go there and take the belt. It is not yours. You have to win it. “”
Bobby is Bobby Kersee, the sorcerer’s coach who helped to transform McLaughlin-Levrone into the largest female obstacle and could do the same in the 400 brutal training sessions with a quarter-miler Ucla Willington Wright was part of the diet.
“I felt that someone was going to have to run 47 years to win this,” Kersee told the Associated Press. “She trained for that. She took up the challenge, took the risk. She is just an incredible athlete that I can’t complain about.”
It was the 19th consecutive victory of McLaughlin -Levrone in a touch race – hedges and apartment – dating from June 2023.
“I knew it was going to be a battle in the Homestretch, and it was really a question of focusing on my track and trying to stay as relaxed as possible,” she said.
Paulino, on the other hand, was more focused on his unique place in history than not winning the race.
“I am grateful to have the opportunity to break 48,” she said. “I always feel like a winner. I spent five years a day training.”
McLaughlin-Levrone took the 400 apartment in 2023, but the injuries derailed its race during a world championship that year. She focused on obstacles last year for her second Olympic gold medal in the event, then returned to the apartment for 2025.
When she ran 48.29 in the semi-finals, she broke a 19-year-old American record and said she was still feeling that she had “something in the tank”.
Then, with a push by Paulino, she dropped it.
“Today was a very good race for athletics, and I am grateful to put myself in a position to bring an exciting event to our sport,” said McLaughlin-Levrone.
This is always an open question to find out if it will stay in this race long enough to go after Koch’s record, or go back to obstacles, where the number “50” is a bit like “48” in the race she won on Thursday evening.
No one had thought of about 50 seconds in the obstacles much until McLaughlin-Levrone begins to break the record for this event on a semi-Regular basis. Four years ago at the Olympic Games, she lowered it to 51.46 in the empty stadium of Tokyo.
She broke it three times more, then, in Paris last year, shot it from 0.28 seconds to 50.37.
Over time, these races have become simple questions from McLaughlin-Levrone against the clock.
This time, something different – a test of force in good faith for the gold medal which overthrew a barrier formerly considerable in the race.
Whatever the next decision of McLaughlin-Levrone, it will necessarily be quick.
“I think now, 47 tells her that she can break 50,” said Kersee. “Knowing her, she probably returns to the obstacles and tries to take what she learned now in the quarter[-mile] And try to run a plan to execute 49.99 or better. “”
