Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, one of the most dominant forces in women’s track and field of the past decade, announced Thursday that she is pregnant with her first child.
The 26-year-old American shared the news on Instagram alongside photos with her husband, Andre Levrone Jr., a former N.F.L. wide receiver. The couple married in 2022.
“Made a human with my favorite human,” McLaughlin-Levrone wrote. In a longer message, she added, “Oh, how we have prayed for you… and the Lord has answered!! You are our greatest blessing and are already so loved. We are eagerly waiting to meet you! Cool parents loading…”
For McLaughlin-Levrone, the pregnancy announcement marks a joyful personal milestone.
It also leaves a question hanging over the sport.
What happens to the women’s 400m and 400m hurdles when the athlete who has bent both events to her will isn’t on the start line?
A season that rewrote expectations
McLaughlin-Levrone’s absence matters because of how completely she has controlled the narrative.
She is a four-time Olympic gold medalist, winning the 400m hurdles at the Tokyo and Paris Games and anchoring U.S. gold-medal performances in the 4×400m relay at both Olympics. She holds the world record in the 400m hurdles and has broken it multiple times, most recently at the Paris Games.
Then, in 2025, she did something even more destabilizing for the rest of the field: she moved away from the hurdles and into the flat 400m, and immediately became one of the fastest women in history.
At the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, McLaughlin-Levrone won the 400m title in 47.78 seconds, the second-fastest time ever recorded. She broke the American record twice in the process and finished just 0.19 seconds shy of Marita Koch’s world record, which has stood since 1985.
It was a performance that suggested her dominance might not just continue, but it might get, somehow, more dominant.
Instead, 2026 could now become a season without her.
The hurdles: Femke Bol steps into the spotlight
In the 400m hurdles, the answer to who sits on the throne without McLaughlin-Levrone is, at least on paper, clear.
Femke Bol of the Netherlands is the reigning world champion, having won gold in Tokyo in 51.54 seconds. Over the course of the 2025 season, she was unbeaten in the event and recorded the three fastest times in the world that year.
Bol has spent much of her career racing in McLaughlin-Levrone’s shadow, often delivering historically fast performances only to finish second when it mattered most. With McLaughlin-Levrone out, Bol enters 2026 as the most accomplished, most consistent hurdler in the world and the athlete every other contender could be measured against.
Behind her, the field is no longer thin.
Jasmine Jones, who ran a personal best of 52.08 seconds to take silver in Tokyo, and Canada’s Savannah Sutherland, one of the fastest women of the 2025 season, are part of a group that suddenly sees opportunity instead of inevitability.
However, Femke Bol running the 400m hurdles this year is all but certain, as she recently announced her intention to also train and compete in the 800m.
The flat 400: Paulino and Naser at the center
The women’s 400m is less settled and a bitmore intriguing.
McLaughlin-Levrone’s 47.78 from Tokyo loomed so large that it distorted the event around it. Remove that performance, and the picture sharpens quickly around two familiar names.
Marileidy Paulino of the Dominican Republic finished second at the world championships in 47.98 seconds, a national record and the second-fastest time in the world last season. Salwa Eid Naser of Bahrain was close behind, taking bronze in 48.19.
Both have global titles to their names. Both have proven they can handle championship pressure. And both now enter 2026 knowing that the athlete who raised the ceiling of the event is not there to meet them at the finish line.
Paulino, in particular, looks poised to anchor the event. She was the fastest returning athlete from the 2025 global final and has shown remarkable consistency across multiple seasons. Naser, meanwhile, remains one of the most naturally gifted one-lap runners in the sport, capable of times that few others can touch.
Behind them, the depth is growing. Younger athletes like Aaliyah Butler and European champion Natalia Bukowiecka have crept into the sub-49-second range, narrowing gaps that once felt permanent.
A quieter year but not an empty one
The broader context matters. Aside from the indoor world championships, 2026 does not feature a traditional global outdoor championship. Instead, World Athletics will debut the Ultimate Championship in Budapest in September, a season-ending event with a $10 million prize purse.
That structure makes 2026 a year for recalibration, physically, mentally, and strategically.
Earlier this month, Kenya’s Beatrice Chebet also announced she would step away from competition in 2026 to start a family. With two of the sport’s most dominant women pursuing in the same window, the year is shaping up to be a proving ground for many.
For McLaughlin-Levrone, the focus is no longer on records or medals, at least for now. For the rest of women’s track, her absence creates something that has been rare in recent seasons: genuine uncertainty.
And for fans, that uncertainty might be the point.
