There have been various high-profile chapters between McLaughlin and Muhammad. At the 2019 world championships, Muhammad dipped under her own world record by 0.04 of a second to edge McLaughlin for the win at 52.16 seconds. Those two races, though, were preludes to what played out on Wednesday, the fastest women’s 400-meter hurdles race in history — one day after Karsten Warholm of Norway had won gold with a time of 45.94 seconds in the fastest men’s 400-meter hurdles race in history. Muhammad, 31, who had come to Tokyo as the reigning Olympic champion, went out hard to take an early lead. But McLaughlin was gaining on her coming off the final turn and outsprinted her in the final meters.

Source: New York Times August 04, 2021 02:33 UTC