Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone moved one step closer to making history yet again with a very comfortable victory in her semifinal heat of the women's 400-meter hurdles on Tuesday at the Olympics at Stade de France in Paris.
McLaughlin-Levrone, the world record holder who turns 25 tomorrow (Aug. 7), ran 52.13 to advance to Thursday's final, which is scheduled for 3:25 p.m. She will be attempting to become the first woman to ever win back-to-back gold medals in the 400 hurdles at the Olympic Games and just the fifth U.S. woman to ever win gold medals in consecutive Olympic Games in any track and field event.
The 52.13 by McLaughlin-Levrone, who eased off the gas over the final 50 meters, is the fastest time ever run in an Olympic semifinal race. For more context, before McLaughlin-Levrone broke the world record five times in the last three years, the world record was 52.16, set by Dalilah Muhammad in 2019.
A 2017 graduate of Union Catholic High, McLaughlin-Levrone will clash in the final with Femke Bol of the Netherlands in a showdown between the only two women to ever run under 51 seconds in the 400 hurdles.
McLaughlin-Levrone, who has run the five fastest times in world history in the event, reset her own world record at the U.S. Olympic Trials with a time of 50.65.
With the amount of firepower that McLaughin-Levrone and Bol will bring to the track, it would be surprising if the world record doesn't go down in this clash of titans.
Could we see a sub 50!!?!!!!!
Anything seems possible for McLaughlin!!!
The 24 year-old Bol, who ran the second fastest time in the semifinals by winning her heat in 52.57, ran a personal best 50.95 last month, which is the European record. Bol was third at the 2021 Olympic Games in Tokyo behind gold medal winner McLaughlin-Levrone and runner-up Muhammad, and she won the 400 hurdles at the 2023 World Championships. McLaughlin-Levrone didn't compete at the World Championships last year due to a knee injury..
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
These are the third Olympic Games for McLaughlin, who also won a gold medal on the women's 4x400 relay team in Tokyo.
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.
Now she finds herself on the brink of making more history.
ROUGH DAY FOR THOMPSON
Curtis Thompson (Florence High, Class of 2014) had a subpar day in the qualifying round of the men's javelin.
Thompson threw 251-11 on his first attempt and didn't improve on that as he finished 13th in the field of 16 in Flight A and wound up 27th out of the 32 total competitors. The top 12 finishers advanced to the final.
The 251-11 is well short of the 272-5, the second best throw in meet history, that Thompson threw when he won his second straight fourth U.S. National Championship and his second Olympic Trials title. At the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, Thompson placed 21st with a 256-6.
MATTIS NARROWLY MISSES FINAL
Sam Mattis (East Brunswick High, Class of 2012) came within seven inches of advancing to the final in the men's discus. Needing to finish among the top 12 in the qualifying round, Mattis placed 14th with a first round throw of 62.66 meters, just .22 meters behind Alex Rose of the and Connor Bell of New Zealand, who each threw 62.88 meters.
Mattis, 8th at the Olympics in Tokyo, qualified by placing second with a season best throw of 216-9 (66.07 meters) at the Olympic Trials to make his second Olympic team. Mattis, who set the still-standing NJ high school discus record with a 218-4 in 2012, won the discus at the 2015 NCAA Championships while he was at UPenn, owns a PR of 225-4.
Cheickna Traore (Snyder High, Class of 2019) scratched from Repechage Round of the men's 200 on Tuesday. Traore representing the Ivory Coast, which is sandwiched between Ghana and Liberia on the southern coast of Africa, ran 20.54 in the opening round, which landed him in the Repechage Round.
After winning three NCAA Division III Titles and earning NCAA D3 All-American 7 times at Ramapo College, Traore finished his collegiate career with a remarkable year at Penn State this past year.
At the NCAA Division I Outdoor Championships in May, Traore won the 200 in 19.95 seconds. Earlier in the outdoor season, he ran a school record and Ivorian National Record of 19.93 seconds in the 200 to win the NCAA East Regional.
Traore, the first NCAA sprint champion for the Nittany Lions since Barney Ewell won the 100-yard and 220 dashes in 1941, was named the Big Ten Outdoor Track Athlete of the Year.
