Nobody saw it coming, yet Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone did it; she won the 400m World title. She completed the race in 47.78 seconds, setting a new championship record and securing the second-fastest time ever recorded in the event. This performance was only 0.18 seconds shy of the long-standing world record of 47.60 seconds set by Marita Koch in 1985. Yet she is still not the GOAT of the event; the track and field community does not consider her so. Why? Because she still does not have enough medals.

While sure if we talk of the fastest times in the 400m list, Sydney is right there at number 2 behind Marita Koch, but if we were to take a look at the medals in the list, the 400m World Champion is far, far below. In a Reddit post talking about who is the GOAT of women’s 400m, her name is a rarity. Track and field fans do not see the Olympic gold medalist as the Greatest of all time in the women’s 400m event because of that.

Levrone’s first and only medal came in the 2025 Tokyo World Athletics Championships. Interestingly, the two fastest women to have ever raced in the women’s 400m are not the top medalists. Koch’s only one came in 1980, the Moscow Olympics, where she won gold in 48.88s. Bahamian sprinting legend, Shaunae Miller-Uibo, tops the list. She is a two-time Olympic 400m champion, winning gold in Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020 with a personal best of 48.36s, and that is just the beginning of it.

The sprinter is also a World Outdoor and Indoor champion, NACAC winner (all three in 2022), and shone early with golds at youth and junior championships. Meanwhile, Sydney still has to get ahead of her compatriots. Sanya Richards-Ross’ national record (48.70s)was sure broken by Sydney in the semifinals of the 2025 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, which she won in 48.29s. Yet she is ahead of her because she won Olympic gold at the 2012 London Games with a time of 49.55 seconds, becoming the first American woman to claim the title since 1984. And there’s more.

She also shone at the World Championships, taking gold in 2009 and silver in 2005, and also won indoors by winning 400m gold at the 2012 World Indoor Championships in Istanbul. To get to her, Sydney McLaughlin Levrone still has to beat Allyson Fleix. She is one of the greatest 400m runners of her era. She won World Championship gold in 2015 with a personal best of 49.26 seconds, and also claimed silver and bronze at other World Championships. At the Olympics, she earned silver in Rio 2016 and bronze in Tokyo 2020 in the 400m.

She has a total of 31 medals across the Olympic Games and World Championships in her showcase. This includes 11 Olympic medals (7 gold, 3 silver, and 1 bronze) and a record 20 World Championship medals (7 individual and 13 relay). Six for 400m alone, while Sydney is still at only 1, that is why track and field fans do not call her the GOAT of the discipline.

Track and field fans reluctant to name Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone as the greatest so quickly

The Reddit post rarely had people talking of Sydney as the GOAT of the 400m. One fan who dared say, “Sydney,” met with the reply, “she only has one world championship gold, she can’t be the goat“. But it is not Shaunae Miller-Uibo (the most decorated female athlete in the 400m) either. The track and field community heavily agrees on “Marie Jose. 👑” as the greatest ever to have worn the spikes for the women’s 400m race.

Marie-José Pérec dominated the 400m, winning World Championship gold in 1991 and 1995, Olympic gold in 1992 (49.25s), and achieving a historic 200m/400m double at the 1996 Atlanta Games, setting a 48.25s Olympic record in the 400m. As for Sydney, one fan said, “If the question asks solely about 400m flat, then the best career in that event would be Perec. If asking about 400m as a distance, this would this include hurdles and hence Sydney would be first by a lot.” There is no competition to Levrone in the 400mH.

The Olympic gold medalist has not lost a 400mH race since October 2019 and has set the World record six times. But like the reply to the comment summed it up, “This has nothing to do with hurdles medals wins times. Even Sydney says what she did in the 400h doesn’t matter two differnt events“, her 400mh records do not matter in the 400m, plus she is still not the fastest. But Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone has shown incredible progress in the 400m. “I’ll give it one more year but that three headed monster of Syd Paulino and Naser 🔥🔥Its gonna be tough to get on that podium,” said a comment.

Paulio claimed Olympic gold in Paris 2024 with a record-breaking 48.17s, following her silver medal performance at Tokyo 2020. A World Champion as well, she boasts a career-best of 47.98s, ranking her at 3 among the fastest women in history over the 400m. Naser won World Championship gold in Doha 2019 (clocking her lifetime best 48.14s), took silver at the World Champs in 2017, and added an Olympic silver in Paris 2024. The three dominated the podium in the 2025 Worlds with McLaughlin-Lervone on top, and in the coming years, that might be the case.