In the women’s 400-meter hurdles, Sydney McLaughlin took home the gold medal at the Olympic Games.
Women 400M Hurdles Olympic Games Tokyo 2020
Sydney McLaughlin won the women’s 400-meter hurdles event at the Tokyo Olympics on Wednesday, breaking her own world record in the process.
Five years after competing for Team USA as a youngster in Rio, the 21-year-old American hurdler ran 51.46, beating 2016 Olympic champion Dalilah Muhammad to win gold.
Muhammad made an early surge to the lead and was still in the lead after the final hurdle, but she was no match for McLaughlin’s finish.
Muhammad broke the previous world record with his time of 51.58 and won the silver medal for the United States. To claim bronze, the Netherlands’ Femke Bol ran a final time of 52.03.
Ukranian athletes Anna Ryzhykova (53.48 seconds) and Viktoriya Tkachuk (53.79 seconds) joined Jamaica’s Janieve Russell (53.08 seconds) in going under the 54-second mark.
As reported by World Athletics, the women’s 400-meter hurdles final in Tokyo features the strongest field in championship history. Only 24 hours prior, Norwegian athlete Karsten Warholm had set a new world record in the men’s 400-meter hurdles.
Muhammad had predicted that she would break the world record in the final, and she wasted no time in trying to do it.
Muhammad explained, “I was thinking, take it out quickly, Extremely fast.”
The fact that they always end up in the outside lane, combined with Sydney and Bol’s incredible finishing speed, makes them a formidable duo. That was perhaps one of my best cards to play.
As far as I was concerned, the velocity was there. After all, why not? To get myself moving, I experimented with a slightly different set pattern.
McLaughlin had raced Muhammad for a long time and was therefore prepared for her American rival’s strategies.
I know [Dalilah] is Going out Tonight,” McLaughlin Remarked.
And I just know that I had to wait and have faith that I could finish strong enough to come off the ropes at full speed and give it my all.
McLaughlin acknowledged that she and Muhammad are both better athletes because to their healthy dose of healthy competition.
You need someone who is going to push you to be your best, and I believe that’s really just iron honing iron,” McLaughlin said. To paraphrase, “And I think that’s what we do so well, every time we step on the track, it’s always something fast.”
When she was only 16 years old, McLaughlin made it onto the 2016 Olympic team, making Tokyo her second Olympic debut. After turning 17 not long before Rio, she made it to the semifinals. With her accomplishment, she established a new record for the youngest U.S. track Olympian since 1972.
At the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials in June, New Jersey native McLaughlin, who trains in Los Angeles with legendary sprints coach Bobby Kersee, sparked a heated rivalry with Muhammad.
McLaughlin’s winning time of 51.90 seconds at the championship in Eugene, Oregon, surpassed Muhammad’s winning mark of 50.98 seconds at the 2019 IAAF World Championships in Doha, Qatar, and set a new world record.
Conclusion
Over the course of several years, McLaughlin’s fame has been steadily on the rise. After just one year at the University of Kentucky, during which she set a new record in her specialty event, she made the jump to the professional circuit.
She competed in both the 400-meter hurdles and the 4×400-meter relay at the 2019 World Championships, where she won silver in the former and gold in the latter. Thanks for read our Article Women 400M Hurdles Olympic Games Tokyo 2020.
