Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone's Fastest 400-Meter Hurdle Times Leading Up to Paris Olympics

Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone began her campaign to defend her 400-meter hurdle Olympic gold medal Sunday in the preliminary round and is ready to compete for a consecutive gold medal in the final on Thursday.

The American hurdler made a name for herself in Tokyo after winning the gold medal. Her journey to the Paris Games has been successful, too, as she competed her personal best time in the 400-meter hurdles at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials back in June. She beat her Tokyo Olympics time by almost a full second.

Ahead of the highly anticipated final race on Thursday, here's a look at McLaughlin-Levrone's 10 best times in the 400-meter hurdle, per World Athletics.

Personal rank	Time (seconds)	Event	Date
1	50.65	U.S. Olympic Team Trials	June 30, 2024
2	50.68	World Athletics Championships	July 22, 2022
3	51.41	USATF Outdoor Championships	June 25, 2022
4	51.46	2021 Tokyo Olympics	August 4, 2021
5	51.61	Music City Track Carnival Festival	June 5, 2022
6	51.68	Gyulai Istvan Memorial	August 8, 2022
7	51.90	U.S. Olympic Trials	June 27, 2021
8	52.17	World Athletics Championships	July 20, 2022
9	52.23	IAAF World Championships in Athletics	October 4, 2019
10	52.48	U.S. Olympic Team Trails	June 29, 2024

Here is how the event played out in Tokyo:

Medal	Athlete	Time (seconds)
Gold	Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone	51.46
Silver	Dalilah Muhammad	51.58
Bronze	Femke Bol	52.03

When McLaughlin-Levrone won gold at the Tokyo Games, she broke the world record in the 400-meter hurdle. Since then, she's crossed the finish line with three better times than that gold-medal race.

She will compete in the 4x400 women's relay this upcoming weekend, too. Her relay team also won the gold in Tokyo.