Coco Gauff gives a shout-out to Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone as Olympian hurdler wins Female Track Athlete of the Year award
Coco Gauff has given a shout out to Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, who received a major honor at the 2024 World Athletics Awards in Monaco. The star American hurdler was crowned the Female Track Athlete of the Year.
During her exceptional season, McLaughlin-Levrone won two gold medals at the Paris Olympics, triumphing in the women's 400m hurdles and the women's 4 x 400m relay while setting a new world record in the process. Gauff previously commended the 25-year-old on her "absolutely inspiring" performance at the prestigious event.
The World No. 3 also acknowledged Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone winning the Female Track Athlete of the Year honor, resharing a post celebrating the hurdler's accomplishment on social media.
Interestingly, Coco Gauff had pursued track before dedicating herself to tennis. Speaking in a press conference at the 2024 Canadian Open, the 20-year-old disclosed that her mother Candi, who was a former track athlete for Florida State, felt she could've been a 400m sprinter.
The World No. 3 also recalled that Olympic gold medalist sprinter Noah Lyles had envisioned her as a hurdler instead. However, Gauff hilariously admitted that she was scared of hurdlers.
"Yeah, my mom said too, she ran track at Florida State, so she was like, I think if, you know, I think 400 would have been my race. Noah Lyles said he saw me as like a 400 hurdler, but I'm like kind of scared of hurdlers, so, yeah, I don't think I would have been like that (laughing), but definitely 400 or longer would have been my thing," Gauff said.
Coco Gauff on her potential as a track star: "I strongly feel like if I would have trained I could have been an Olympian"
Coco Gauff has expressed confidence in her track abilities, suggesting that she could've won an Olympic medal with proper training. To elucidate her point, the 20-year-old highlighted that she had won the majority of her middle school races with minimal effort.
"Yeah, I actually do, and I do, I mean, I do feel like I could have been, I don't know if I would have been as good as I was in tennis in track, but I strongly feel like if I would have trained I could have been an Olympian," Coco Gauff said during the aforementioned press conference.
"Track is the only sport I would say that in just because I did do well in middle school like never training, I didn't go to one track practice, and I won all my races except two, and both were against the same girl and she was in 8th grade," she added.
The World No. 3 also disclosed that she often contemplated what her life would've looked like if she had chosen track as a career, sharing her plans to take part in a race during the off-season to gauge her speed.
"I do wish that, sometimes I'm like, what could have happened? I even talked to my dad about putting me in some local track meets in the off-season, just for the fun of it, just to see where I could go. I think I do want to do that. I'd do, maybe one off-season, just run a race, it doesn't hurt," she said.
However, just a month later, Coco Gauff admitted that she was "glad" she didn't choose track after a rigorous sprint training session left her lying on the ground in exhaustion.