ATLANTA, GEORGIA, May 30 — Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone is returning to her comfort zone.
On Friday night at The Edwin Moses Legends Meet at Morehouse College she’ll run her first 400H race since August 08, 2022.
“I just want to have a qualifying mark and have a clean race,” McLaughlin-Levrone said at a pre-meet press conference. “I’m not worried about anything else other than that, honestly. As long as those two things happen and I stay healthy, I have no complaints.”
The qualifying standard for the Paris Olympics is 54.85 seconds. McLaughlin-Levrone, the WR holder at 50.68, already has a bye into the U.S. Olympic Trials based on her status as reigning Olympic champion.
The 24-year-old flirted with the flat 400 last year, running the second-fastest time in U.S. history, 48.74, before a knee injury forced her out of the World Championships in Budapest.
However, coach Bob Kersee announced May 17 — the day before McLaughlin-Levrone ran a blistering PR of 22.07 in the 200 — that she would pursue another long hurdles gold medal instead of venturing back into the 400.
“This is what I love to do,” McLaughlin-Levrone said. “It’s my main event and I think it was really fun running the open 400 last year. Obviously, the season kind of got cut a little bit short.”
But with the Olympics on the horizon this year, the New Jersey native said she wanted “to do something that I was familiar with and comfortable with. I think I’m still getting to know the 400. But this is what I know best, so being able to come back to this and trying to do it better than I have and improve upon myself, I think there is just some confidence and security in that and in a year as big as this one.”
Meet director Paul Doyle of the Puma American Track League announced a “million-dollar hurdle challenge” in the men’s 400H for the meet held on the Edwin Moses Track. Any athlete who betters Moses’ PR of 47.02 — the World Record from 1983 to ’92 — will receive $900,000 while a lucky fan in the stands will take home $100,000.
Where’s the women’s million-dollar bonus? McLaughlin-Levrone laughed. “I don’t know,” she said. “It’s all good, though. You know, in the first race… let’s just get the qualifying mark.”
Going after a World Record in her first lap hurdles race of the season,…
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