Can Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone break a controversial world record long thought to be unbreakable?

On October 6, 1985, at the height of East Germany’s era of systematic state-sponsored doping, the country’s most celebrated sprinter delivered her most astonishing performance.

Marita Koch demolished a world-class field in the women’s 400-meter dash, bolting out of the blocks at a blistering pace, building an overwhelming lead and streaking to victory in a world-record time of 47.60 seconds.

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For the next 34 years, only one woman came within a second of Koch’s record. Even now, no one has come within a half second. The fastest quarter milers in the world seldom dared to dream of wiping Koch’s name out of the record books. Her time was considered, as NBC Sports track and field analyst Ato Boldon puts it, “impossible” to beat.

“Marie-José Pérec of France, my friend and former training partner, who I think is the best ever in that event, would roll her eyes HARD whenever the subject of that record came up,” Boldon told Yahoo Sports. “It was unapproachable. Otherworldly.”

Everything changed earlier this year when America’s queen of the 400-meter hurdles decided to search for a new challenge. Two-time Olympic champion Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone already had lowered the 400 hurdles world record six times since June 2021 and redefined what was attainable in her signature event. The 26-year-old became curious how fast she could complete a single lap of the track without 10 obstacles to leap over.

The answer is fast. Superhumanly fast. Maybe even peerlessly fast.

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On Tuesday night, in the last of three semifinal heats at track and field’s World Championships in Tokyo, McLaughlin-Levrone cruised to victory in 48.29 seconds, more than a second quicker than any other competitor. McLaughlin-Levrone’s time didn’t just shatter the American record in the women’s 400 previously held by Sanya Richards-Ross. It also established McLaughlin-Levrone as the most serious threat in four decades to topple Koch’s controversial world record.

When McLaughlin-Levrone returns to the Japan National Stadium track for Thursday’s women’s 400 final, the gold medal won’t be all that’s at stake. The way that McLaughlin throttled down over the final 30 meters in Tuesday’s semifinal has fueled excitement that she could clock a sub-48-second time in the final or perhaps even make a run at 47.60.

McLaughlin-Levrone will be challenged by a historically strong field that includes 2024 Olympic gold and silver medalists Marileidy Paulino of the Dominican Republic and Salwa Eid Naser of Bahrain. All eight of Thursday’s finalists ran 49.87 seconds or faster in the semifinals. That time would have won world championship gold as recently as 2017.

When asked if McLaughlin-Levrone could realistically make a run at Koch’s record on Thursday, Boldon cautioned not to count her out.

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“I think there’s a very good chance,” Boldon said. “I rushed back to my hotel to do some analysis after watching the semifinal and I think Sydney has almost a second more of performance she can find in her race just based on where she cruised to that 48.3.”

Another vote of confidence comes from LaTanya Sheffield, a former American record holder in the 400 hurdles and USA Track & Field’s women’s head coach at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

“Anything is possible with Sydney,” Sheffield, now the director of track and field at Long Beach State, told Yahoo Sports. “Whoever thought the 400 hurdles would see 50.2? So we need to get on her bandwagon and believe in some things that we previously couldn’t imagine.”

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There are some high-ranking track officials who probably would be elated if McLaughlin-Levrone were to beat Koch’s record. Only eight years ago, European Athletics urged the sport’s global governing body to void all world records set before 2005, the same year that storage of blood and urine samples began for more sophisticated drug screenings.

Among the tainted records targeted by that failed proposal was Koch’s. Critics have long alleged that she only ran 47.60 with the aid of banned performance-enhancing substances.

German molecular biologist Werner Franke and his wife, former Olympic discus thrower Brigitte Berendonk, exposed East Germany's state-run doping system by acquiring thousands of secret files after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. The files meticulously detailed how for decades the East German government used anabolic steroids and hormones to bolster their athletes’ chances of winning medals at the Olympics and other international competitions.

“Several thousand athletes were treated with androgens every year, including minors of each sex,” Franke and Berendonk wrote in a 1997 article published in the journal Clinical Chemistry. “Special emphasis was placed on administering androgens to women and adolescent girls because this practice proved to be particularly effective for sports performance.”

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Documents obtained and published by the Frankes specified dosages and dates for Koch’s alleged use of the steroid Oral-Turinabol. Despite that, Koch has denied using performance-enhancing drugs, telling the BBC in 2014 that she has “a clear conscience.”

“I never tested positive,” she said. “I never did anything which I should not have done at that time.”

Track and field’s governing body can’t remove Koch’s record because she never tested positive for banned substances and because the World Anti-Doping Association’s 10-year statute of limitations has long expired. Koch’s record will stand unless she were to admit to using illicit substances to boost her performance.

So it’s likely up to current and future quarter milers to try to nudge Koch down the all-time list in the 400 meters.

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And if anyone is up to that challenge, it’s probably McLaughlin-Levrone.

She has made a career out of achieving the improbable.

McLaughlin-Levrone has been marked for world domination in the hurdles since before she was old enough to legally drive a car. By 16, the New Jersey native had already claimed her first Gatorade high school athlete of the year award, rewritten the high school record book and made her first U.S. Olympic team.

When McLaughlin-Levrone turned pro after her freshman year at Kentucky, fellow American Dalilah Muhammad had just started to bust through old barriers by dipping under 53 seconds in the 400 hurdles. McLaughlin-Levrone took that and built on it, dragging along a generation of young hurdlers who are now starting to run 51s and 52s alongside her.

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Can McLaughlin-Levrone now redefine what is possible in a second event? Can she eclipse a world record long thought to be unbreakable? Sheffield hopes it happens, not just for McLaughlin-Levrone but for how it can elevate the sport.

For as long as she can remember, Sheffield has considered a sub-48-second 400 meters as “one of those male performance benchmarks.”

“It’s one of those numbers that’s been unattainable for a female to do,” she said.

That perception will start to change, Sheffield believes, if McLaughlin can break 48 seconds and approach Koch’s record.

Said Sheffield with a chuckle, “All of a sudden, other top athletes are going to go back to their coaches and their physio teams and ask, ‘How can I do that too?’”