Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone opens up on making Olympic debut at 16
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Reading Time: 3min | Sat. 28.12.24. | 15:43
At 16 and while still in high school, she finished third in the 2016 U.S. Olympic Trials in a new world junior 400m hurdles record of 54.15
American athlete Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone has opened up on making her Olympic debut at just 16 years old. The World Champion hurdler made her debut on the global stage at the 2016 Rio Olympics.
At 16 and while still in high school, she finished third in the 2016 U.S. Olympic Trials in a new world junior 400m hurdles record of 54.15.
That saw her become the youngest American track and field athlete to qualify for the Olympic Games since the boycotted Moscow 1980 Games. McLaughlin made the semi-finals at Rio 2016, but her potential was obvious.
After one year at the University of Kentucky, McLaughlin turned professional in June 2018. Just over a year later, she took silver behind Olympic champion Dalilah Muhammad at the Doha World Championships.
Speaking in her book Far Beyond Gold: Running From Fear to Faith, McLaughlin-Levrone revealed that she faced a lot of self-doubt before competing against a highly competitive line-up at the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials.
She qualified for the finals of the women's 400m hurdles after finishing first in the semi-finals.
However, before marching on to the trials' finals, the American athlete revealed that nervousness about competing led to a mind freeze, and her aspirations of competing at the Olympics came to a standstill. Despite qualifying for the Olympics, she was certain that she did not give her best.
"Since that time, I've often asked myself why I was so afraid. You may know that kind of fear: the kind that freezes you, stops you in your tracks, and makes you forget everything you've worked for and everything you want.
It feels like a curse as if it's completely out of your control. Why was this happening to me? Why, suddenly, did I want nothing to do with my dreams of Olympic glory?" she wrote.
The 25-year-old went on to reveal how she had been dreaming of competing at the Olympic games ever since she watched the women's 4x400m relay at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, where Sanya Richards-Ross ran the final leg and Team USA clinched the gold medal. However, even at the Olympics, she could not give her best performance.
"It was not because I thought I had no chance of making the team. By any objective standard, I was one of the fastest in the field. I had every reason to believe not only that I belonged but also that if performed to my capabilities, I would punch my ticket to Rio,” she wrote.
She continued: "Honestly, I robbed myself of an opportunity. I don't know what would have happened, but I didn't want to find out.
I left Rio with the feeling that I had left something behind. It was very hard. It's not something you want to talk about, because you don't want people to be mad at you, but it was my own thing.”
She revealed that she was not mentally and physically prepared to compete at such a global level. Despite that, she admitted to having learned her lessons as she continues to push her limits.
During the Paris Olympics, the 25-year-old continued to orbit above her peers - and history. Not only was her 50.37 time in the final a new world record (the sixth time she's broken it), but her back-to-back gold after Tokyo 2020 in 2021 also made her the first woman to successfully defend her Olympic title in the race.
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