American hurdler star Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone has retained her gold medal from the 2020 Olympics and broken her own world record in the process.
The New Jersey native came home in a time of 50.37 seconds, breaking the world record she had set earlier this summer at the U.S. Olympic trials in Oregon.
The Tokyo Olympic champion has regained her place at the top of the hurdles world after missing out on the 2023 World Athletics Championships.
At the end of the race, her friends and family hugged her and placed a tiara on her head as queen of the track for the night.
Anna Cockrell of the United States took silver in the event and Femke Bol of the Netherlands won bronze.
Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone breaks her own world record and wins gold in Paris
She moved ahead of everyone else in the 400-meter hurdles, beating her old record by three-tenths of a second.
With the win, McLauglin-Levrone has set the last six world records in the event dating back to the first she set at the 2021 U.S. Olympic Trials ahead of the Tokyo Games.
He then broke that record by almost half a second at that year’s Olympics, improving the record from 51.9 to 51.46.
In the summer of 2022, McLaughlin-Levrone would break the record twice at the same track: Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon.
It was on this same track that he would once again break the world record last June with a time of 50.65.
Now he has broken his own record again in Paris with a time of 50.37, which was exactly 1.5 seconds faster than the second-placed rider.
As for Cockrell, she won her first Olympic medal in this event after being disqualified in Tokyo for her seventh-place finish due to a lane violation.
Bol repeats his performance as a bronze medalist from the Tokyo Olympics with bronze once again in Paris.
