Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone breaks World Championship record for 400m gold
The two-time Olympic champion in the 400m hurdles took a gamble on contesting a new event, and it paid off
Kevin Morris
Despite the rain falling on the track in Tokyo on Thursday, two-time Olympic 400m hurdles champion Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone brought the heat, stunning spectators with a world championship record of 47.78 seconds in the flat 400m and defeating the defending world and Olympic champion, Marileidy Paulino. The American took on the distance as a new challenge after achieving every accolade available in the hurdles, and the gamble paid off.
McLaughlin-Levrone’s time is the second-fastest of all time, behind only the world record by 0.18 seconds, set at 47.60 by Marita Koch of what was then known as East Germany in 1985. McLaughlin-Levrone was the second-fastest qualifier (after Naser) out of the heats, and the fastest out of the semi-final, with a world-leading 48.29–which also broke the American record set by Sanya Richards-Ross exactly 19 years earlier, on Sept. 16, 2006.
Paulino, forced to settle for silver, also went sub-48, setting a new national record for her native Dominican Republic in 47.98. Paulino’s time puts her third on the women’s 400m all-time list.
Salwa Eid Naser of Bahrain took bronze in a season’s best 48.19.
It was really only a question of which colour of medal the three favourites would each achieve, and in retrospect, perhaps it was a foregone conclusion, considering McLaughlin-Levrone has displayed such dominance in everything she’s undertaken. Still, no one could have predicted just how spectacularly she would perform when it counted.
McLaughlin-Levrone also has two Olympic gold medals from the 4x400m relay.
For full results of the 2025 World Athletics Championships, click here.
Canadian Running’s coverage of the 2025 World Athletics Championships is brought to you by ASICS Canada.
