The Spiritual Realm of Sydney McLaughlin
August 09, 2024 at 12:43AMAt the time of this writing, it’s still unclear whether McLaughlin-Levrone will repeat in the women’s 400-meter hurdles—the starting gun is still about 15 minutes off—but her prowess and legacy are already established. Either way, Lex Pryor’s profile of the track star is well worth your time: lyrical, thoughtful, and intimate.
There was a part of her dominance that was, like any prodigy’s, a boon of sheer ability, cosmic fortune, and genealogy. But the higher and faster she rose, the more that rise was fueled by the work along the margins, in the crevices of athletic ingenuity where faculty, force, and fastidiousness fold into one. She was beyond her years in competition but also in tactical command. On the same days when Sydney would beat her opponents by enough distance to make it seem plausible that her lane didn’t have hurdles, she’d nitpick her form after the meets. Where peers moved through quicksand at the end of races, hamstrung by their physiology, Sydney outmaneuvered each sinkhole. At 15 years old, she’d lap the field and spend her time afterward geeking out about running “more fluent,” improving not just her diet or her training hours, but her “whole mindset.”
from Longreads https://longreads.com/2024/08/08/the-spiritual-realm-of-sydney-mclaughlin/
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