Track and Field World Cup loses a star performer

Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone will not be in Budapest

With one week to go before the start of the rainbow competitions, the organizers of the 2023 World Athletics Championships scheduled in Budapest must register a major defection, that of Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone: an injury has in fact stopped the reigning Olympic and world 400-meter hurdles champion and world record holder in the specialty (50″68).

“It is with great sadness that I must announce my withdrawal from participating in this year’s World Championships in Budapest,” McLaughlin-Levrone wrote on her social profiles. After consulting with the medical and technical staff, we have agreed on the need to recover from a minor knee problem so that I can be fully fit for the Olympics in Paris next year.”

“I look forward to seeing everyone back on the track soon,” concluded the hurdler, who in addition to the 400-meter hurdles world record also holds the Olympic record, set in Tokyo in the summer of 2021 with a time of 51 seconds and 46 hundredths.

The World Track and Field Championships have been held biennially since 1991, in odd-numbered years: the only exception being 2022, when they were held in Eugene, Oregon, after being postponed for a year due to restrictions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.