Postpublished at 11:27 BST
11:27 BST
Women’s 400m heats
Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone isn’t going to get an easy tilt at the 400m title.
Standing in her way is reigning Olympic and world champion Marileidy Paulino. Last summer, the 28-year-old became the first woman from the Dominican Republic to win an Olympic
gold medal in any sport, upgrading her silver from Tokyo with an Olympic record of 48.17. Paulino, who did not run competitively until the age of 19, has only faced McLaughlin-Levrone once, beating her in June 2023.
Instead she has mostly been duelling it out with Salwa Eid Naser, who took silver in Paris last summer. That was the 27-year-old’s first medal since she became the youngest ever
women’s 400m world champion in 2019, after the Bahrain athlete served a drugs ban that saw her miss the Tokyo Olympics and 2022 World Championships. She beat Paulino in the
recent Diamond League Final in Zurich.
Great Britain’s Amber Anning became the first British woman to win an individual world indoor sprint title this March,
edging out American Alexis Holmes in Nanjing.
She set a national record of 49.29 seconds while finishing fifth at the Paris Olympics but has not been in top
form this summer. Her last outing before Tokyo was encouraging though, setting a season’s best
of 49.75 for fifth place at the Diamond League Final in Zurich.
She is joined in the field by team-mates Yemi Mary John and Victoria Ohuruogu.
AloJapan.com