Barrier-breaking McLaughlin-Levrone chases historic hurdles double

New mark: Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone won the women’s 400m hurdles event during the US Olympic Team Trials in a new world record time of 50.65. — AP

LOS ANGELES: From the moment she qualified for her first Olympic Games as a 16-year-old high school student, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone has never paid much attention to conventional wisdom.

For more than three decades since Soviet hurdler Marina Stepanova became the first woman to run the 400m hurdles in under 53 seconds in 1986, the athletics world had wondered when, or if, the 52-second barrier would be broken.