Team USA celebrates gold from McLaughlin-Levrone, Davis-Woodhall and Holloway in track and field

Team USA celebrates gold from McLaughlin-Levrone, Davis-Woodhall and Holloway in track and field

SAINT-DENIS, France  – They ran into each other on the first turn of the Olympic track, their victory laps crossing paths at the intersection of destiny.

They met on a night that had become a royal procession, in a moment where Stade de France was trying to catch its breath and scream itself silly at the same time, at a spot not far the sacred ground France buried its kings for 10 centuries, two queens of the 21st Century, queens for the new millennium, hurdler Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, a gold bejeweled tiara on her head, and long jumper Tara Davis-Woodhall, wearing another kind of crown, a cowboy hat, both draped in American flags, embracing and then turning to wave, acknowledging the deafening roar as it echoed through the Olympic city and into the world beyond, the world they ruled.

With another queen, gymnast Simone Biles, looking on from a VIP section on the stadium’s home straight, McLaughlin-Levrone defended her Olympic 400-meter hurdles title by destroying the field and shattering her own world record with 50.37 seconds clocking, securing Team USA’s 100th medal of the Paris Games.

“Greatness,” Davis-Woodhall said, “watching greatness.”

And greatness following greatness.

McLaughlin-Levrone’s sixth world record in the past three years came just moments after Davis-Woodhall wrapped up the long jump competition to win a gold medal that she first seemed destined for as an Agoura High School standout.

In between her record-setting prep career and Thursday night’s golden triumph, Davis-Woodhall had been written off, battled depression and an extensive list of injuries, transferred from Georgia to Texas and late in 2019 was on the verge of quitting the sport.

Thursday she took the lead in the first round, reclaimed it in the second and then extended her lead on her third jump with a 23-feet, 3 1/2-inches mark that held up the rest of the night.

“Is it real? Am I dreaming?” Davis-Woodhall said. “Don’t pinch me. This is real, I cannot believe it. I’m so stoked. I’ve been dreaming of this moment for so long, ever since I was 4 years old.

“I’ve gone through hell and back. I’ve like faced everything you can imagine.

“It’s been tough but I never let anything get me down (this season) I tried so hard just to keep on being positive this year and keep on being motivated and that motivation turned into manifestation and that manifestation turned into reality and the reality is I’m Olympic gold medalist.”

The Olympic gold medal was the only major title that had eluded U.S. hurdler Grant Holloway, the three-time world champion.

Until Thursday.

Holloway, second at the Tokyo Games three years ago, led from start to finish adding the Olympic title to his already thick resume with a 12.99 clocking. Team USA’s Daniel Roberts edged Jamaica’s Rasheed Broadbell for the silver medal, both runners officially clocked in 13.09.

“Today, it was just my day,” Holloway said. “I have the Olympic title, I have the world titles, indoor titles, we just put a lot of whipped cream on it and now we are just going to keep rolling, rolling, rolling until that very last race and that put the cherry on it.”

American sprinter Noah Lyles had hoped for similar closure in the 200-meter final. Lyles has won the last three World Championships 200 and is the American record holder in the event.

He was heavily favored to win the 200 in Tokyo only to finish a disappointing third. He was again the overwhelming favorite in Paris, especially after becoming the first U.S. male to win the Olympic 100 in 20 years.

But Lyles tested positive for COVID around 5 a.m. Tuesday after waking up in the “middle of the night feeling real chills, aching, sore throat, and those were a lot of the symptoms.

“We tested it, came back positive and we quickly quarantined in a hotel nearby the (Olympic) Village. Tried to get me on as much medication as we legally could to make sure my body could keep the momentum going. I still wanted to run, it was still possible, we just stayed away from everybody. I knew that if I wanted to come out here and win, I had to give everything I have from the get-go. I didn’t have any time to save energy. That was the strategy.”

But he labored through a final won by Botswana’s Leslie Tebogo in 19.46 with Kenny Bednarek of the U.S. second at 19.62 and Lyles collecting another bronze medal at 19.70.

“It definitely affected my performance,” Lyles said of COVID. “I’ve had to take a lot of breaks. I was coughing through the night. I’m more proud of myself than anything, coming out here to get a bronze with COVID.”

In 2021 and 2022, facing no human threat to her throne, McLaughlin-Levrone’s only real challenge had been the clock. In an event where the world record had been stuck at 52.34 from August 2003 until July 2019 when Dalilah Muhammad of the U.S., the 2016 Olympic champion, lowered it to 52.20.

Since then, McLaughlin-Levrone had shattered one barrier after another. She was the first woman under 52 seconds, winning the 2021 Olympic Trials in 51.90. She was the first woman under 51, clocking 50.68 at the 2022 World Championships in Eugene.

She and her coach Bob Kersee opted to focus on the 400 and a shot at breaking East German Marita Koch’s 1985 world record of 47.60 last season, a campaign that was cut short by a knee injury.

In her absence, Femko Bol of Netherlands won the 2023 World 400-hurdles title and continued to emerge as a legitimate threat to the American with a 50.95 clocking last month, putting her second on the all-time list, and then a 47.9 anchor leg that clinched the mixed 4×400 relay gold medal earlier in Paris.

Bol tried to stay with McLaughlin-Levrone through the first five hurdles Thursday but would pay a steep price, fading to third behind McLaughlin-Levrone and former USC standout Anna Cockrell (51.87).

“All you want to do in an Olympic final is to put up your best race,” Bol said. “I screwed it up.”

Olympic finals, World Championships, Olympic Trials, big races, no one in what two-time Olympic champion Sebastian Coe, president of World Athletics, has described as track’s “golden generation” has been better at rising to the occasion than McLaughlin-Levrone.

Her six world records have come in two Olympic Trials, a Worlds final and now two Olympic finals.

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“Sydney really pushed the bar,” Bol said. “I mean, she was still running 50 when I was still running 52. And I think it opened your eyes that there’s so much more possible … and once again today she proved on the most that counts most, at the Olympic final that she can perform so well.”

So McLaughlin-Levrone turns her attention back to the clock and chasing another barrier.

“I remember when Dalilah broke the world record back in 2019,” she said, “and I was just baffled, you know, seeing 52.2 and we’ve taken it so far.

“…I do think 49 is possible, and I do think that the talent sitting in front you can do that,” she continued, sitting between Cockrell and Bol in a post-race press conference. “And I think we can push each other to do that and get better and improve and find ways to lower these times that we for so long thought were impossible.

“I don’t know when it’s possible, but I do think it’s out there for sure.”

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