Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone has turned ‘debilitating fear’ into six world records

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There are gold medallists. There are greats. Then there are those select few Olympic GOATs.

The greatest of all time in their chosen event come around only sparingly but, in Paris this week, athletics has showcased a 25-year-old talent in the tradition of Usain Bolt, Wilma Rudolph, Ed Moses and Jackie Joyner-Kersee.

Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone has redefined one event. She was the first woman under 52 seconds for the 400 metres hurdles. Five world records later, McLaughlin-Levrone is now eyeing the possibility of becoming the first to break 50 seconds.

“I would love to – I don’t know if that’s this year, I don’t know if that’s next year,” said McLaughlin-Levrone, who ran a world record 50.37sec to successfully defend her Olympic title on Thursday night. But there was also an even more striking admission when we spoke about what might follow Paris.

No athlete has gone close to the 47.60sec it took the East German Marita Koch to run 400m flat almost 40 years ago but, in what is not her main event, McLaughlin-Levrone has already set tongues wagging with a time of 48.75, which was this year’s world lead until Nickisha Pryce’s 48.57 in London recently.

She also does not accept the suggestion this particular record – achieved during a notorious era of state-sponsored East German doping (Koch herself has always denied cheating) – represents an impossible goal.

“It’s a wonderful challenge,” says McLaughlin-Levrone. “I love trying to figure out new events – and see how you put a race like that together. It sounds insane but I’m sure it’s possible. I’m sure eventually somebody will.”

The glint in McLaughlin-Levrone’s eye then sparkles even more brightly with the next question. So what is her best event?

“I love being able to have range, do different things,” she says. “I’m still trying to convince Bobby [Kersee, her coach] to let me long jump. It would be super fun. I gotta get through this year first and then we can maybe negotiate.

“It’s a great question. I think once I get to the end of my career, we’ll look back, you can ask that question again, and we can figure it out.”

‘It felt like torture trying to get to the line’

What McLaughlin-Levrone undoubtedly does have figured out is an approach to the sport that balances her natural competitive spirit with a perspective that allows her to relish even the moments of maximum spotlight. Her description of the period between 2016, when she qualified for the Olympics aged only 16, right up until the 2020 Covid lockdown is startling.

“It felt like the end of the world if I didn’t perform to a certain level; there was so much weight internally, just fear that went with that,” she says. “It was really debilitating. There were nights of not sleeping, waking up in sweat, not eating before races, not talking before.

“Genuinely, it felt like torture trying to get to the line, all to run a race for however many seconds. It was the weight of the world for something that should have been a joyful experience.”

Self-inflicted pressure took toll

McLaughlin-Levrone now thinks that the anxiety was related to wrapping her identity in athletic gifts which had stood out from a young age. Her parents, Willie and Mary, were both also accomplished athletes but did not push her into the sport. She was known as “the kid that runs everywhere” but also danced and played soccer. Willie, who was a huge Muhammad Ali fan, would tell his daughter to “be the butterfly” in approaching sport with grace, speed and agility as well as a deadly sting, just like boxing’s original GOAT.

“I responded well to the praise I would get when I performed well,” she says. “That is what I came to equate with feeling valued or loved or accepted, because sports were such a huge part of my life from a very young age. So my mind and world view of love came from that place of, ‘If I perform at this level, I will be accepted. I will be appreciated. That is my value’.”

That mindset became so entrenched that she could barely eat breakfast on the day of the 2016 US Olympic trials. She even asked her father if she could pull out.

There was also minimal elation at the history-making moment of qualification and a world junior record. “I can’t breathe,” were the first words out of her mouth in the post-race interview. It had been her dream since the age of eight to become an Olympian, but she promptly then told her mother she did not want to go to Brazil.

McLaughlin-Levrone would ultimately bow out in the semi-final before a cycle of fear, pain and relief was interrupted only when the Covid-19 pandemic led to the Olympics being delayed by a year.

Chariots of Fire served as inspiration

Scarcely-available university training facilities in California were being used by groups of athletes and she met and then formally began working with Kersee. An Instagram post that summer also led to meeting her husband Andre Levrone – a former American football player – and his deep religious conviction helped make her own Christian faith the cornerstone of her life.

It is a period upon which she has been reflecting hugely over the past year while writing a book, Far Beyond Gold: Running From Fear to Faith, which outlines how her whole identity shifted from being “the girl who ran fast” to what she calls “a daughter of God”.

She now reads scriptures to remind her that there is something much more meaningful than the outcome of a running race. She has also watched the British Oscar-winning film Chariots of Fire, which charts the extraordinary story of Scottish sprinter Eric Liddell, who, in Paris exactly 100 years ago, gave up the chance of winning 100m gold because the heats took place on a Sunday. Liddell did still win the 400m later that week.

“Oh my goodness,” says McLaughlin-Levrone, when I ask if she was aware of Liddell. “I respect him for standing for his faith. It was amazing what he did; everything he did. Honestly, my whole career, I had people tell me I need to watch that movie. I watched it last year and I absolutely loved it! I just connected to the freedom he felt to use the gift that God had given him to run. It’s a beautiful, beautiful movie.”

Coach who unlocks emotions

McLauglin-Levrone also emphasises the influence of Kersee, who, having instantly sensed the distress that she was feeling when they first met in 2020, went to his bag and brought out his ‘emotion wheel’. He asked her to show him rather than say anything, telling her that he could also have trouble expressing himself. McLaughlin-Levrone would turn the wheel to the words ‘frustrated’ and ‘resentful’.

“He has added so much value – and I still have the wheel,” she says. McLaughlin-Levrone has been criticised for not racing more often but Kersee, whose alumni include his wife Joyner-Kersee, Florence Griffith Joyner, Gail Devers and Allyson Felix, responds by asserting that great runners “are like fine-tuned cars” and that over-racing or training is the biggest danger of all.

The psychological shift has been even more profound.

“Things have changed so drastically,” says McLaughlin-Levrone. “I’m always going to be competitive, but I think now I have a healthy balance of understanding that it’s not everything in life. It’s not equal to who I am as a person if I don’t win a race.

“This sport won’t last forever – these things are fleeting and passing – and I have an opportunity to use the gift I’ve been given. I want to use it well. I always compete to win, but I’m not devastated if I don’t. I used to be so fearful and now it is a joyful opportunity to express myself. It is very humbling.”

A version of this interview was first published on Aug 4, 2024.

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