Des Moines, Iowa; 28 July 2019: Dalilah Muhammad is lining up for her 400m h final at the US national championships and trials for spots in the US world championship team. Muhammad is getting ready for her race - calmly, unobtrusively, focussed. Two lanes in front of her, a 19-year-old rising star is doing the same. Sydney McLaughlin, 9 years Muhammad’s junior and U20 world record holder, has defeated her twice during this season already.
The race gets underway, with Muhammad going out fast. The question is, whether Sydney McLaughlin will be able to catch up in the final third of the race and outrun her just before the finish line once again. She is certainly trying, flooring the metaphorical accelerator. But this time round, she is not fast enough. There is one thing Dalilah Muhammad never does; she never caves in. Instead, she keeps her pace, as always, and causes a sensation: 52.20, world record. A time that some pundits had predicted to be in the cards for Sydney McLaughlin.
Rematch in Zurich
The next clash of the two athletes is scheduled for 29 August 2019. Dalilah Muhammad and Sydney McLaughlin are both set to run at Weltklasse Zürich, and they will be lining up against the leaders in their field, including two-time world champion and multiple Zurich winner Zuzana Hejnová, Olympic silver medallist Ashley Spencer, who secured her own spot for this year’s world championship while running a new personal best. Shamier Little, unfortunately, came in fourth at the trials. She is one of the ten fastest 400m h runners of all time, but she will still be missing out on the world championships this year. The Zurich race will be her opportunity to make amends.
The crowd will be going particularly wild, when Switzerland’s European champion Lea Sprunger will step on the Letzigrund track, however. She will certainly be hoping that the cheers will serve as a boost in this race against the world’s fastest of her colleagues. European championship bronze medallist Anna Ryzhykova, and three-times Commonwealth Games champion Janieve Russell complete the star-studded field of the Weltklasse Zürich 400m h race.
