McLaughlin-Levrone cracks 48 seconds in historically fast 400 at the worlds

TOKYO (AP) — When Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone powered though the final curve of the 400-meter final at world championships, she glanced to her right and saw something that hadn’t been there in a while.

Another runner.

She had a race on her hands.

The best way to explain how McLaughlin-Levrone became the first woman in nearly 40 years to crack the all-but-unscalable 48-second mark in the 400 is that the opponent she beat Thursday night on a rain-glistened track in Tokyo, Marileidy Paulino, broke 48 seconds, too.

“You don’t run something like that without amazing women pushing you to it,” McLaughlin-Levrone said.

The final numbers in this one: McLaughlin-Levrone 47.78 seconds. Paulino 47.98.

They are the second and third fastest times in history, short only of the 47.60 by East Germany’s Marita Koch, set Oct. 6, 1985 — one of the last vestiges from an Eastern Bloc doping system that was exposed years after it ended, but too late for the records to be stripped from the books.

McLaughlin-Levrone, who stepped away from hurdles to see what she might be able to do in the 400 flat, said she was every bit as focused on winning the title in a new event as going after a record that had always been thought unapproachable.

And Paulino, the reigning Olympic and world champion in this event, wasn’t just going to give it away.

This was an even race, the likes of which McLaughlin-Levrone hadn’t been part of in at least three years in the hurdles, as the runners rounded the stretch. McLaughlin-Levrone opened a gap of about four body lengths with 30 meters left, but Paulino was actually gaining ground when they both lunged into the finish line.

“At the end of the day, this wasn’t my title to hold onto, it was mine to gain,” McLaughlin-Levrone said. “Bobby uses boxing terms all the time. He said, ’You’ve got to go out there and take the belt. It’s not yours. You’ve got to go earn it.'”

Bobby is Bobby Kersee, the wizardly coach who helped transform McLaughlin-Levrone into the greatest female hurdler ever and might be doing the same in the 400. Brutal training sessions with one-time UCLA quarter-miler Willington Wright were part of the regimen.

“I felt that somebody was going to have to run 47-something to win this,” Kersee told The Associated Press. “She trained for it. She took on the challenge, took on the risk. She’s just an amazing athlete that I can have no complaints about.”

As the times came up on the scoreboard, the crowd roared. The enormity of the moment wasn’t lost on anyone.

Nobody had come within a half-second of Koch’s mark until this race. Third-place finisher Salwa Eid Nasar clocked 48.19, a time that would have won the last two world championships.

“It’s just amazing what the 400 has become the last couple years,” said Britain’s Amber Anning, who finished fifth in 49.36. “I love it, it makes me want to step up my game. To see it done, it gives hope to us that anything’s possible in the 4.”

Paulino, meanwhile, was more focused on her unique place in history than not winning the race.

“I’m thankful for having the opportunity to break 48,” she said. “I still feel like a winner. I’ve spent five years every day training for this.”

McLaughlin-Levrone took up the 400 flat in 2023, but injuries derailed her run at a world championship that year. She focused on hurdles last year for her second Olympic gold medal in the event, then came back to the flat for 2025.

When she ran 48.29 in the semifinal, she broke a 19-year-old American record and said she still felt she had “something left in the tank.”

Then, with a push from Paulino, she let it loose.

“Today was a really great race for track and field, and I'm grateful to put myself in position to bring an exciting event to our sport,” McLaughlin-Levrone said.

It’s still an open question as to whether she will stick around in this race long enough to go after Koch’s record, or return to the hurdles, where the number “50” hangs out there much like “48” did in the race she won Thursday night.

Nobody had thought much about 50 seconds in hurdles until McLaughlin-Levrone started breaking the record in that event on a semi-regular basis. Four years ago at the Olympics, she lowered it to 51.46 in the empty stadium in Tokyo.

She broke it three more times and then, in Paris last year, took it down by another .28 seconds to 50.37.

Over time, those races became mere matters of McLaughlin-Levrone against the clock.

This time, something different – a bona fide showdown for the gold medal that knocked down a once-unthinkable barrier in racing.

Whatever McLaughlin-Levrone's next move is, it’s bound to be fast.

“I think, now, 47 tells her that she can break 50,” Kersee said. “Knowing her, she’s probably going back to the hurdles and try to take what she learned now in the quarter(-mile) and try to execute a plan to run 49.99 or better.”

Australian 17-year-old Gout Gout’s run through the 200s ended with a fourth-place finish in his semifinal heat in a time of 20.36 seconds.

Not a bad debut at the worlds considering he’s still in high school.

“The biggest eye-opener is knowing that I can compete at the young age I am against the best men in the world,” Gout said.

The Australian record-setter, who draws comparisons to Usain Bolt, insists the future is bright. The 2032 Olympics will be in Brisbane.

“I’m just a kid right now, and I know that if I can do this at 17, I can do this at 25 and I’ll be even better at 25 than I was at 17,” he said.

What was the message behind Noah Lyles running the season’s best time, a 19.51, in the 200-meter semifinals?

“It tells me I was stupid enough to run 19.5 in the semis,” Lyles said after beating the next-best time in the semifinal round by more than a quarter of a second.

Part of the art of running through the rounds is to not use up too much energy early.

Lyles didn’t appear concerned about that, as he heads into a final that will include the three main characters in the 200-meter drama -- himself, Kenny Bednarek and Letsile Tebogo.

“I’m in shape,” Lyles said. “I’ll probably be screaming from my hotel room for my massage. But I’ll be ready.”

AP Sports Writer Pat Graham contributed.

AP sports: https://apnews.com/sports

United States' Noah Lyles competes in the men's 200 meters heats at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, Thursday, Sept. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Louise Delmotte)

Australia's Gout Gout reacts after finishing a men's 200 meters semifinal at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, Thursday, Sept. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)

United States' Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone reacts after winning gold medal in the women's 400 meters final at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, Thursday, Sept. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

United States' Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, crosses the finish line to win in the women's 400 meters final at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, Thursday, Sept. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)

United States' Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone races to the gold medal in the women's 400 meters final at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, Thursday, Sept. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Hiro Komae)

United States' Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, reacts after winning in the women's 400 meters final at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, Thursday, Sept. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)

PARIS (AP) — Brigitte Bardot, the French 1960s sex symbol who became one of the greatest screen sirens of the 20th century and later a militant animal rights activist and far-right supporter, has died. She was 91.

Bardot died Sunday at her home in southern France, according to Bruno Jacquelin, of the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the protection of animals. Speaking to The Associated Press, he gave no cause of death, and said no arrangements have yet been made for funeral or memorial services. She had been hospitalized last month.

Bardot became an international celebrity as a sexualized teen bride in the 1956 movie “And God Created Woman.” Directed by her then-husband, Roger Vadim, it triggered a scandal with scenes of the long-legged beauty dancing on tables naked.

At the height of a cinema career that spanned some 28 films and three marriages, Bardot came to symbolize a nation bursting out of bourgeois respectability. Her tousled, blond hair, voluptuous figure and pouty irreverence made her one of France’s best-known stars.

Such was her widespread appeal that in 1969 her features were chosen to be the model for “Marianne,” the national emblem of France and the official Gallic seal. Bardot’s face appeared on statues, postage stamps and even on coins.

‘’We are mourning a legend,'' French President Emmanuel Macron wrote Sunday on X.

Bardot’s second career as an animal rights activist was equally sensational. She traveled to the Arctic to blow the whistle on the slaughter of baby seals; she condemned the use of animals in laboratory experiments; and she opposed Muslim slaughter rituals.

“Man is an insatiable predator,” Bardot told The Associated Press on her 73rd birthday, in 2007. “I don’t care about my past glory. That means nothing in the face of an animal that suffers, since it has no power, no words to defend itself.”

Her activism earned her compatriots’ respect and, in 1985, she was awarded the Legion of Honor, the nation’s highest recognition.

Later, however, she fell from public grace as her animal protection diatribes took on a decidedly extremist tone. She frequently decried the influx of immigrants into France, especially Muslims.

She was convicted and fined five times in French courts of inciting racial hatred, in incidents inspired by her opposition to the Muslim practice of slaughtering sheep during annual religious holidays.

Bardot’s 1992 marriage to fourth husband Bernard d’Ormale, a onetime adviser to National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, contributed to her political shift. She described Le Pen, an outspoken nationalist with multiple racism convictions of his own, as a “lovely, intelligent man.”

In 2012, she wrote a letter in support of the presidential bid of Marine Le Pen, who now leads her father's renamed National Rally party. Le Pen paid homage Sunday to an “exceptional woman” who was “incredibly French.”

In 2018, at the height of the #MeToo movement, Bardot said in an interview that most actors protesting sexual harassment in the film industry were “hypocritical” and “ridiculous” because many played “the teases” with producers to land parts.

She said she had never had been a victim of sexual harassment and found it “charming to be told that I was beautiful or that I had a nice little ass.”

Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot was born Sept. 28, 1934, to a wealthy industrialist. A shy, secretive child, she studied classical ballet and was discovered by a family friend who put her on the cover of Elle magazine at age 14.

Bardot once described her childhood as “difficult” and said her father was a strict disciplinarian who would sometimes punish her with a horse whip.

But it was French movie producer Vadim, whom she married in 1952, who saw her potential and wrote “And God Created Woman” to showcase her provocative sensuality, an explosive cocktail of childlike innocence and raw sexuality.

The film, which portrayed Bardot as a bored newlywed who beds her brother-in-law, had a decisive influence on New Wave directors Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut, and came to embody the hedonism and sexual freedom of the 1960s.

The film was a box-office hit, and it made Bardot a superstar. Her girlish pout, tiny waist and generous bust were often more appreciated than her talent.

“It’s an embarrassment to have acted so badly,” Bardot said of her early films. “I suffered a lot in the beginning. I was really treated like someone less than nothing.”

Bardot’s unabashed, off-screen love affair with co-star Jean-Louis Trintignant further shocked the nation. It eradicated the boundaries between her public and private life and turned her into a hot prize for paparazzi.

Bardot never adjusted to the limelight. She blamed the constant press attention for the suicide attempt that followed 10 months after the birth of her only child, Nicolas. Photographers had broken into her house two weeks before she gave birth to snap a picture of her pregnant.

Nicolas’ father was Jacques Charrier, a French actor whom she married in 1959 but who never felt comfortable in his role as Monsieur Bardot. Bardot soon gave up her son to his father, and later said she had been chronically depressed and unready for the duties of being a mother.

“I was looking for roots then,” she said in an interview. “I had none to offer.”

In her 1996 autobiography “Initiales B.B.,” she likened her pregnancy to “a tumor growing inside me,” and described Charrier as “temperamental and abusive.”

Bardot married her third husband, West German millionaire playboy Gunther Sachs, in 1966, but the relationship again ended in divorce three years later.

Among her films were “A Parisian” (1957); “In Case of Misfortune,” in which she starred in 1958 with screen legend Jean Gabin; “The Truth” (1960); “Private Life” (1962); “A Ravishing Idiot” (1964); “Shalako” (1968); “Women” (1969); “The Bear And The Doll” (1970); “Rum Boulevard” (1971); and “Don Juan” (1973).

With the exception of 1963’s critically acclaimed “Contempt,” directed by Godard, Bardot’s films were rarely complicated by plots. Often they were vehicles to display Bardot in scanty dresses or frolicking nude in the sun.

“It was never a great passion of mine,” she said of filmmaking. “And it can be deadly sometimes. Marilyn (Monroe) perished because of it.”

Bardot retired to her Riviera villa in St. Tropez at the age of 39 in 1973 after “The Woman Grabber.”

She emerged a decade later with a new persona: An animal rights lobbyist, her face was wrinkled and her voice was deep following years of heavy smoking. She abandoned her jet-set life and sold off movie memorabilia and jewelry to create a foundation devoted exclusively to the prevention of animal cruelty.

Her activism knew no borders. She urged South Korea to ban the sale of dog meat and once wrote to U.S. President Bill Clinton asking why the U.S. Navy recaptured two dolphins it had released into the wild.

She attacked centuries-old French and Italian sporting traditions including the Palio, a free-for-all horse race, and campaigned on behalf of wolves, rabbits, kittens and turtle doves.

“It’s true that sometimes I get carried away, but when I see how slowly things move forward ... my distress takes over,” Bardot told the AP when asked about her racial hatred convictions and opposition to Muslim ritual slaughter,

In 1997, several towns removed Bardot-inspired statues of Marianne after the actress voiced anti-immigrant sentiment. Also that year, she received death threats after calling for a ban on the sale of horse meat.

Bardot once said that she identified with the animals that she was trying to save.

“I can understand hunted animals because of the way I was treated,” Bardot said. “What happened to me was inhuman. I was constantly surrounded by the world press.”

Ganley contributed to this story before her retirement. Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report.

FILE - French actress Brigitte Bardot steps into a milk bath while filming the comedy "Nero's Big Weekend," in Rome March 27, 1956. (AP Photo/File)

FILE - French Actress Brigitte Bardot with a dog in the Gennevilliers, Paris, while supporting the French animal protection society operation, Feb. 10, 1982. (AP Photo/Duclos, File)

FILE - French actress Brigitte Bardot poses in character from the motion picture "Voulez-Vous Danser Avec Moi" (Do you Want to Dance With Me), on Sept. 10, 1959. (AP Photo/File)

FILE - French film legend and animal rights activist Brigitte Bardot looks on prior to a march of various animal rights associations on March 24, 2007 in Paris. (AP Photo/Jacques Brinon, file)

FILE - French actress Brigitte Bardot poses with a huge sombrero she brought back from Mexico, as she arrives at Orly Airport in Paris, France, on May 27, 1965. (AP Photo/File)