The world of track and field is on the verge of ending its long 2025 season. But Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone has continued her quest to better herself. The off-season is a time to relax and take a break from rigorous training. But not for McLaughlin-Levrone. She seems to have set her sights on surpassing Marita Koch and becoming the fastest woman in the 400m flat. And she’s already taking steps to achieve that. 

The Olympic medalist, Fitzroy Dunkley, popularly known as ‘RoriDunk’, took to X and shared his speculations. He shared a video of McLaughlin-Levrone doing pull-ups with “Year 7” written on the visual. In the caption, he wondered, “What is Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone cooking up for 2026? 🤯” To be fair, McLaughlin-Levrone has become a lot unpredictable recently. 

Of course, she has done it before. But opting out of the 400m hurdles and running the flat instead was a successful stint. After all, she became the second fastest woman in the 400m race with a clock in time of 47.78 seconds, and claimed the championship title at the 2025 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo. And this stance made Dunkley question her next move. He wrote, “Yesterday, she posted in the gym. Is she back training for the 25/26 season? 👀Will we see her in the 400m again? Will she go back to the hurdles? Or something new!” 

If she is considering options away from the tracks, skiing and snowboarding seem like the options for her. She claimed that they were the “number 1 thing.” However, she still has unfinished business in the 400m realm. She’s trailing behind Marita Koch, who ran the 400m in a record time of 47.60 seconds. And McLaughlin-Levrone needs to surpass that time to become the fastest woman to run 400m. 

So, is that what her future holds? 

What does the future have in store for Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone?

She seems to be training for one reason. Beating Koch’s record. During a recent interview with People Magazine, McLaughlin-Levrone talked about her plans after winning the 400m flat championship title. She said, “At the moment, I think just kind of enjoying this one. I think there’s always something you could improve upon, whether that’s going back to the 400 hurdles to try to break 50 or trying again for this world record, or whatever it is, there’s always something we could focus on.” 

In the 400m hurdles, McLaughlin-Levrone’s best time is 50.37 seconds. And she aims to go sub-50 seconds in the future. But when the conversation shifted, forcing her to choose between the 400m flat and hurdles, she decided to leave us all hanging. The 26-year-old star stated, “We’re going to have to talk about the schedule on that one. I’m going to need some days off in there if that was the case because it’s tough fields in both events.” She definitely respects both of these races. But she has to be physically ready in order to run in both events. 

And that might just be the reason why Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone is still training hard during the off-season. Do you think she can ace the races at the 2028 LA Olympics? Drop down to the comments below and keep the conversation flowing.