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)

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — In a city that often seems to be staggering from one crisis to the next, the sudden resignation of police Chief Brian O’Hara after a finding he likely interfered in a misconduct investigation has left Minneapolis searching again for a way forward.

O’Hara was an outsider brought in with a mandate to reform the police department after the 2020 killing of George Floyd, which led to federal and state investigative findings of excessive force and racist policing practices. O’Hara had spent most of his career in Newark, New Jersey, where he instituted changes after that department was put under a federal consent decree for patterns of excessive force and unconstitutional stops and searches.

The challenges in Minneapolis were clear before O'Hara arrived in late 2022. For a time, it had seemed the department itself might not survive. In 2021, more than 43% of voters supported disbanding the department as the city reeled from Floyd’s killing and the massive protests and widespread rioting that followed.

Policing experts had noted the monumental task that faced the city’s next police chief, who would have to rebuild community trust and a department whose morale had dipped so low that it was hemorrhaging officers.

“I don’t think there was a bigger challenge to any American city than what Minneapolis faced when he arrived,” said Chuck Wexler, executive director of a Washington think tank, the Police Executive Research Forum. “They had gone from 850 to 500 officers, violent crime was significantly up, trust with the community was broken, a police station had burned down and a federal consent decree would face the next chief. Then you had the politics of Minneapolis.”

Coming in as an outsider to lead a large department is daunting, even without being asked to reform and rebuild, said Renée Hall, president of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives who moved from Detroit to lead the Dallas Police Department from 2017 to 2020.

“It’s extremely challenging to walk into an organization, where you don’t even know where the light switches are, where the bathrooms are. And that’s just the basics,” Hall said. “You have to learn the officers, the community, the politics of that particular city, and try to learn and navigate the existing relationships, like unions or officer associations and who is tied to whom and who is fighting for whom.”

Hall said outside hires can face resentment from those within an organization who supported internal candidates. They also have to earn the trust of the community, which she said takes time.

After the police disbandment measure failed, O'Hara joined the bureaucracy of a deeply progressive city that is regularly buffeted by political battles between the mayor and the City Council, and among council members.

Those battles were on full display Wednesday, when a City Council news conference about O'Hara's resignation quickly turned into an opportunity for the council's resolute progressives to attack Mayor Jacob Frey, who has long portrayed himself as a “pragmatic progressive.”

The resignation “is a symptom of a much larger problem, which is simply that Mayor Frey continues to be unable to effectively manage the Minneapolis Police Department,” said Council member Robin Wonsley, a cornerstone of the council's progressive bloc.

Frey, who just weeks ago pushed to have O'Hara reappointed as chief, fired back at criticism that he didn’t move aggressively enough when allegations of the chief's potential misconduct emerged.

“I don’t make decisions based on rumors and anonymous complaints,” he said in a statement, adding that he would work with the council to find a replacement. “I took action promptly after receiving the investigative report. … Decisions this serious have to be grounded in facts, evidence and completed investigations. Anything less would be irresponsible.”

O'Hara did not return a message seeking comment Wednesday. His attorney, Doug Kelley, released a statement touting successes during O'Hara's tenure, including diversifying and increasing the department's ranks, the decreasing violent crime rate and mitigating violent clashes during the immigration crackdown.

“The circumstances of Chief O’Hara’s departure should not define his service," Kelley wrote. "He was proud to serve Minneapolis, remains grateful to the officers and community partners who did difficult work under extraordinary pressure, and hopes the city continues moving forward. He understandably looks forward to returning to his young family in New Jersey.”

The resignation came just months after Minneapolis was plunged into the national spotlight amid a federal immigration surge that left three civilians shot, two fatally. O'Hara faced criticism he hadn't done enough to stop the crackdown.

Violence plagued the city in 2025, including deadly attacks on state politicians in the Minneapolis suburbs; gunfire that erupted at a popular city picnic spot; and a shooting during Mass at the Church of the Annunciation that left two children dead and more than a dozen people injured. O’Hara called the church attack a “ truly unthinkable tragedy. ”

Critics say dozens of complaints were filed against O'Hara, from accusations that he was rude to the public to the recent investigation into an ultimately unproven allegation he had a sexual relationship with a city employee. Most of the complaints have not been made public, and 17 complaints are still being investigated. Investigators closed 17 more without any disciplinary actions.

An independent investigator did not find evidence to substantiate the alleged sexual relationship with a city employee, but a second report released this week said O'Hara likely deleted the employee's contact from his phone during the investigation and that he talked to another employee about the probe despite being told it was not to be discussed.

That recent report led to a written reprimand; Frey told O'Hara he would be disciplined and that he could be terminated. Frey said O'Hara chose to resign instead.

Lauer reported from Philadelphia.

Minneapolis City Council Members, from left, Jason Chavez, Robin Wonsley and Council President Elliot Payne speak to reporters about the resignation of Police Chief Brian O'Hara on Wednesday, May 27, 2026 at City Hall in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Mark Vancleave)

FILE - Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara speaks during a news conference, Jan. 10, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Jen Golbeck, File)