Is Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone already the greatest of all time?
In 2023, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone became the world leader and the American champion in the 400 meter dash. That was in a race that she ran without any hurdles. The reason why she even ran that event is because she appears to have gotten bored of running the 400 hurdles essentially by herself. The question now, entering the 2024 Olympics is not “can Sydney win the Olympic 400 meter dash”, but will she do it. She is already the greatest 400 meter hurdler we have ever seen, and there is no debate to be had about that. But if she can keep this up in the open 400, she can write the final chapter on a book we’ve been reading ever since she stepped on the track in high school. Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone is the greatest women’s track athlete in the modern era, and depending on how you look at it, she won’t need to keep running much longer to retire as the greatest of all time. This is the reason why.
Sydney has always been dominant
Every athlete who is truly great shows flashes of that brilliance long before they dominate the entire world. At the high school level, Sydney McLaughlin was the best high school athlete we’d ever seen in the internet age. It’s too much to rattle off all of her accomplishments, and by now you probably know some of them. The simplest explanation for all of it is that she was an Olympian before her senior year of high school. But you could sum up her high school career this way. Sydney McLaughlin was the Gatorade Female Athlete of the Year twice. Notice the words Track and Field are not in the title. They believed she was the greatest high school girl in the nation, regardless of sport. She is the only athlete, male or female to win the award twice. That is a list with names like LeBron James, Candace Parker, and Allyson Felix! That is the reason why Sports Illustrated asked the question if “she was in fact the most dominant high school girls athlete of all time?”
Sydney could have gone pro after all that, but chose to go to college. She only ran one season for the Kentucky Wildcats, but was perhaps the most versatile collegiate athlete we had ever seen. She dominated the 400 hurdles outdoors while breaking the collegiate record, which was to be expected. But she also finished second in the indoor 400 meter dash at the NCAAs, and 4th in the 200 meter dash. You have to keep in mind that her only real goal at that time was to become an Olympic gold medalist in the 400 hurdles, so those events were essentially practice runs.
Sydney is already the best of her generation
Sydney has been so good, for so long, particularly in the 400 hurdles that we forget she is only 23 years old right now. She went back to back as the Olympic champion and World Champion in the event, breaking her own world record when she did it. In fact, the last time she lost a hurdle race was when the woman who beat her broke the world record, that was way back in 2019 when she was only 19 years old! And she was still only 4 hundredths of a second off the world record back then.
To become the greatest of all time you have to be the best and beat the best. Sydney said it herself that “the great ones have to challenge themselves.” She could dominate the 400 hurdles for years to come, but that would be boring for her and for the fans. The harsh reality is that Sydney quite literally is no longer capable of winning the 400 hurdles, all she can do is fail to win. And we’ve never known how fast she could run in the 400 meter dash because she didn’t know herself. She never legitimately tried. But she’s putting in the work now and the results are clear. She is the best of the best. Nobody in the world has legitimately proven to be faster, and she’s still just getting warmed up. However, the world record might as well be a mile away, because a lot happened in the 80s for track and field. That is when the women’s 400 meter world record was set, but most people perceive it with an asterisk.
The Bottom Line
Sydney’s legacy as one of the greatest to ever do it, is already cemented in history. She could retire today and always make any top 10 list. And it’s almost a foregone conclusion she will win a world championship in the 400, either this season or beyond. Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone is arguably the greatest women’s track athletes of all time. But if she can even get close to the world record in the 400, we can take the word arguably out of the sentence. Sydney would be the greatest ever, point blank period. And there would be almost no argument you could ever make to convince me otherwise.
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