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World Athletics president Sebastian Coe compares Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone’s Paris Olympics feat to former athlete David Rudisha’s iconic London win
Sebastian Coe, the president of World Athletics, has compared Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone’s 400m hurdles performance at the 2024 Paris Olympics to David Rudisha’s iconic 800m victory at the 2012 London Olympics. Both athletes dominated their races from start to finish, shattering the world records in their respective events.
At this year’s quadrennial games, McLaughlin-Levrone delivered a record-breaking performance, registering a time of 50.37s to win her second successive gold medal in the event. However, what made the achievement even more special was that she was way ahead of her competitors as the silver and bronze medalists Anna Cockrell and Femke Bol ran times of 51.87s and 52.15s.
In a recent interview with Letsrun.com, Coe spoke about the performance at the Paris Olympics that stood out the most for him. Out of all the top performances, the retired athlete and two-time Olympic gold medalist highlighted McLaughlin-Levrone’s display in Paris as ‘one of the most definitive victories’ in the history of the Summer Games.
Coe further praised the 25-year-old's impressive display, comparing it to Rudisha’s feat, stating:
“Sydney McLaughlin this year was outstanding. I’ve only seen one performance [in-person] in an Olympic stadium to rival that just in terms of strength of character, physically and mentally, and that was David Rudisha in London winning gun-to-tape.”
Similar to Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone’s resounding victory in Paris, Rudisha smashed the world record in London with a time of 1:40.91, a feat which still remains unbroken to date.
Sebastian Coe calls for reconsideration of 400m hurdles height after Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone’s record-breaking feat
Sebastian Coe called for reconsideration of the height of the 400m hurdles after Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone’s global record performance at the Paris Olympics. While the American broke the record on August 8, Coe called for reconsideration of the height in the 400m hurdles for both men and women, saying (on August 9 via Athletics Weekly):
“There’s probably a case now for looking at the height of the hurdles because these guys don’t really look like they are breaking their form very much. That’s a mixture of good hurdling and probably the height.”
He added:
“The innovation teams will be looking at all sorts of things. It’s very much a personal view, I’ve spoken to a couple of 400m hurdlers and they think that, actually, it’s probably something we might want to look at.”
Notably, the male athletes at the Olympics had to clear a height of 91.4cm, while female athletes had to make a clearance of 76.2cm to advance in their respective hurdles events. While McLaughlin-Levrone has been breaking the women’s 400m hurdles record since 2021, the men’s record is still held by Karsten Warholm, who set it at the Tokyo Olympics final with a time of 45.94s.
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