Is Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone the most dominant and electrifying athlete in the world in any sport right now!!
After what the New Jersey native did in the women's 400-meter hurdles at the U.S. Olympic Trials on Sunday night at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon, it's getting very difficult for anyone to not say YES!!!!!!
The 24-year-old McLaughlin-Levrone sent the track and field world into a frenzy yet again with another head-spinning and breathtaking performance for the ages when she burned up the track and stopped the clock at 50.65 to break her own world record and secure a berth on her third Olympic Team.
McLaughlin's masterpiece took down the world record of 50.68 that she ran to strike gold at the World Championships at Hayward Field in 2022. It's the fifth time in the last three years that McLaughlin has broken the world record in the 400 hurdles!
McLaughlin's time was so fast that it would have placed her sixth in the women's flat 400!!! How crazy is that!!!
With the victory, the incomparable McLaughlin, who graduated from NJ's Union Catholic High School in 2017, has now captured four U.S. Championships. She won the 400 hurdles at the U.S. Championships in 2021 and 2022, and captured the flat 400 last year,
McLaughlin-Levrone blitzed a loaded field, which included 2016 Olympic gold medal winner and former world record holder and nemesis Dalilah Muhammad, who finished sixth in 54.27. Anna Cockrell finished second with a PR of 52.64, nearly 2 full seconds behind McLaughlin-Levrone, and Jasmine Jones was third in 52.77.
McLaughlin-Levrone hasn't lost a 400 hurdle race since she earned the silver medal at the 2019 World Championships in Doha, Qatar, finishing just .07 behind Muhammad, 52.16 to 52.23
. The 34-year-old Muhammad said this was her final Olympic Trials.
McLaughlin-Levrone will begin defense of her Olympic title when she runs in the opening round of the 400 hurdles at the Olympic Games in Paris on Sunday, August 4 at 6:35 a.m.
For those who need a quick history lesson on McLaughlin-Levrone, here you go -
In 2016 when she was just a 16 year-old high school junior, McLaughlin became the youngest athlete to make the Olympic track and field team since Carol Lewis of Willingboro (long jump) and Denean Howard (400) made the 1980 U.S. team, but neither competed in the Olympic Games that year because of the U.S. boycott. When McLaughlin ran in Rio, she was the youngest U.S. track and field athlete to participate in the Olympic Games since 1972 when 15 year-old Cindy Gilbert competed in the high jump.
Five years later, McLaughlin-Levrone won the 400 hurdles at the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2021 with a then world record time of 51.46, and also ran on the winning 4x400 relay. A year later, she dropped her world record down to 50.68 when she won the 400 hurdles at the 2022 World Championships at Hayward Field.
And now this!!!!
McLaughlin-Levrone is a once in a lifetime talent, who makes the seemingly impossible possible!!!
MCLAUGHLIN-LEVRONE'S WORLD RECORD PROGRESSION
JUNE 27, 2021 - 51.90 to finish first at the U.S. Olympic Trials at Hayward Field
AUGUST 4, 2021 - 51.46 to win the gold at the Olympics in Tokyo
JUNE 25 , 2022 - 51.41 to finish first at the U.S. Championships at Hayward Field
JULY 22, 2022 - 50.68 to win the gold at the World Championships at Hayward Field
JUNE 30, 2024 - 50.65 to finish first at the U.S. Olympic Trials at Hayward Field
SOARING TO PARIS
Salif Mane, who graduated from FDU last month with a degree in civil engineering, soared a personal best 57-5.75 to blowout the competition in the men's triple jump and earn a trip to Paris. Mane won by nearly 2 feet over runner-up Russell Robinson of the University of Miami, second with a 55-9.75.
Mane, who also edged Robinson to win the NCAA triple jump title earlier this month with a then PR of 56-2.75, had the best three jumps of the competition and of his career. He opened with a 56-8.50, which met the Olympic Standard, and had a 56-4.50 on his third attempt. Then on his final jump, Mane exploded for his 57-5.75.
Mane, who graduated from Taft Educational Campus in the Bronx, N.Y. in 2019, is a seven-time All-American (tied for most in Northeast Conference history), is a four-time First Team All-American triple jumper (twice outdoors), also tied for the most in NEC history.
RUDY, RUDY, RUDY
Rudy Winkler, who attended Rutgers as a grad student in 2018 and is the American record holder in the hammer throw, finished second in the men's hammer with a season best throw of 258-10 to secure a spot on his third Olympic team.
Winkler, the defending champion who was seeking his fifth U.S. Championship, finished exactly 2 feet behind Daniel Haugh, his teammate at the New York Athletic Club. Winkler won U.S. titles in 2016, 2018, 2021 and 2023.
In 2021, Winkler, who starred at Averill Park High School (Class of 2013) in upstate N.Y. and was 2017 NCAA champ for Cornell, broke the American record in the hammer when he won the U.S. Championship with a massive 271-4 and then placed seventh at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.
When the 29-year-old Winkler competes in Paris, he will attempt to become the first American to medal in the hammer since Lance Deal earned the silver medal in Atlanta in 1996.
MORE NJ RESULTS
Nia Ali (Pleasantville High, Class of 2006), narrowly missed making her third Olympic Team, finishing fourth in a red hot women's 100 hurdles in 12.37, the fastest 4th place time ever run and the fifth fastest time in the world this year. The 35-year-old Ali, the defending champion, finished just .06 behind Grace Stark, who ran 12.31 to grab the third and final spot on the Olympic team.
Ali has won three World Championships in her career (indoors in the 60 HH in 2014 and 2016 and outdoors in 2019), and she captured the silver medal at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio.
In the women's javelin, 3-time A-10 champ Casey Bogues of Dayton University (Middletown North, Class of 2019), finished eighth with a throw of 176-1, and 2-time Ivy League champion Shea Greene, a rising junior at Princeton University, placed ninth with a mark of 175-9.
Bogues, who just completed her red shirt junior season, qualified for the final with a monster throw of 188-4 in the first round on Friday, which smashed her own school record and is the best throw ever by a NJ high school graduate with the current javelin. Bogues also competed at the 2021 Olympic Trials as a college freshman!
Chloe Timberg of Rutgers, the NCAA champion this season, cleared 15-2.25 to place a very impressive seventh in the field of 13 in the women's pole vault. Timberg, a 2021 graduate of Central Bucks West High in Pa., made clutch clearances of 14-10.25 and 15-2.25 on her final attempts before she failed to make 15-4.25.
GARDEN PARTY IN PARIS
There will be four NJ high school graduates competing on the track and in the field for the U.S at the Olympic Games in Paris.
In addition to McLaughlin,
Curtis Thompson (Florence High, Class of 2014), Sam Mattis (East Brunswick High, Class of 2012), and Keturah Orji (Mount Olive, Class of 2014) are all on Team USA!
Thompson won his fourth U.S. Championships in the men's javelin, while Orji (women's triple jump) and Mattis (men's discus) each finished second. This the third and final Olympics for Orji (2016 and 2021), who said she will retire after this season, and the second for both Thompson and Mattis, who both competed in Tokyo in 2021.
As noted above in this story, Mane, who just graduated from FDU, won the men's triple jump, and Winkler, who attended Rutgers as a grad student in 2018, qualified by placing second in the hammer throw. Winkler, who did his undergrad studies at Cornell, graduated from Averill Park High School in upstate N.Y. in 2013.
Wilson, a 2019 graduate of Monmouth University, qualified by placing second in the women's 800. Wilson, who hails from Wallingford, Pa., graduated from Strath Haven High in Pa. in 2014. She's the first track and field athlete ever from Monmouth University to make the U.S. Olympic Team.
