Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone Praises God After World-Record Olympic Gold
By Movieguide® Contributor
Team USA track star Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone just took home the gold medal in the 400-meter hurdles and beat her own world record.
“McLaughlin-Levrone pulled away while rounding the backstretch to blow away the field, win by more than a second, and set a new world record with an incredible run of 50.37 seconds,” Sports Spectrum reported. “Anna Cockrell of the United States nabbed the silver while Femke Bol of the Netherlands took bronze.”
She set her previous world record time of 50.65 in June. She beat that by just 0.28 seconds.
“I credit all that I do to God,” she proclaimed after winning gold. “He’s given me a gift. He’s given me a drive. I just want to continue to improve upon myself and I have a platform and I want to use it to glorify Him.”
“And so, whenever I step on the track it’s always the prayer of God,” she continued. “‘Let me be the vessel in which you’re glorified. Whatever the result is.’ How I conduct myself. How I carry myself. Not just how I perform. And so, it’s just freedom and knowing that regardless of what happens, He’s going to get the praise through me and that’s why I do what I do.”
Throughout her training and prelims at the Olympics, the athlete committed to trusting God, no matter what.
“You work all year to get here, but what you’ve done is what keeps you here. So it’s just about executing that, trusting the process, trusting the plan, and ultimately, trusting God,” she told NBC Sports after the semifinal run in Paris.
“The athlete is now a three-time Olympic medalist, as she also won a gold for the 4×400-meter relay during Tokyo. McLaughlin-Levrone is also now the only woman to win the event in consecutive Olympic Games,” PEOPLE reported.
Pictures of her after the win captured her wearing a tiara, which she said she didn’t ask for but her sister-in-law brought as “just fun, just family, just commemorating the moment.”
Movieguide® previously reported on McLaughlin-Levrone’s heart for God:
Olympian and world record holder Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone is opening up about balancing wanting privacy while also being one of the top track and field stars in the world all while holding onto her faith.
“I think it’s cool to be able to represent our sport and have people, you know, recognize track and field and want to watch it,” she said on the “Journey to Gold Zone” podcast, “especially like younger athletes and whatnot, but I do think it is hard to live life when people are always trying to be in it.
“So, I do like to live a little bit more private life, but I also love representing our sport, so if that means you know get a little more notice, then great,” she added.
As she navigates fame, McLaughlin-Levrone holds on to her faith.
“I think faith is the foundation of, like you said my life,” she explained, “and from there, like that helps me navigate everything…[its] the lens in which I view the world through, and so when I am navigating ups and downs and complications, it’s looking at it from the lens of, ‘Okay, how would God want me to deal with this? How would Christ deal with this?’ And you know, it helps a lot of the confusion that that can happen.”
