How Fast Can Sydney McLaughlin Run The 200m?

How Fast Can Sydney McLaughlin Run The 200m?

Sydney McLaughlin holds national records for 400m and 400m hurdles, but what can she run for 200m?

May 19, 2017 by Johanna Gretschel
How Fast Can Sydney McLaughlin Run The 200m?
Tomorrow afternoon, Sydney McLaughlin will contest the 200m at the Union County Championships in New Jersey. The 2016 Olympian has wowed the world with national records in the 400m hurdles and indoor 400m, but what can she do in half the distance?

The University of Kentucky commit has raced the 200m just five times in her prep career, with her PB of 23.53 (+0.3) coming from this meet in 2016. If she were to run that time tomorrow, she'd rank No. 10 in the nation and No. 1 in the state of New Jersey. But when taking her flat 400m PB (51.61 to set the national indoor record) and 400m relay split PB (50.37 to set the Penn Relays high school record) into consideration, it's clear that McLaughlin is capable of running much faster.

According to the IAAF scoring tables, 50.37 for 400m is worth 22.45 for 200m, which would rank No. 3 on the all-time high school rankings behind only Candace Hill, who ran 22.43 before turning pro in 2015, and Allyson Felix, whose 22.11 has stood as the national prep record since 2003.

Now, the IAAF scoring tables are slightly more generous with McLaughlin's 400m hurdles national record of 54.15. That time is worth a 22.36, which would rank only behind Ms. Felix's mark.

How fast will she run tomorrow? You'll have to tune in to the Union County Championships to find out. The stream starts on MileSplit at 4 PM ET.

Watch Sydney McLaughlin race the Union County Championships on MileSplit


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