MIAMI BEACH: Two-time reigning Olympic champion Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone won the 400-meter hurdles with the fastest time in the world this year at the Grand Slam Track series Miami meet on Saturday at the Ansin Sports Complex. The 25-year-old American won in 52.07 seconds with Jamaica’s Andrenette Knight second in 54.08 in a wind of 1.3 m/sec. McLaughlin-Levrone, who added a 2022 world title to her Olympic gold medals from Tokyo and Paris, broke her own world record last August in capturing the title in France with a run of 50.37. Athletes in 12 groups — men’s and women’s short sprints, long sprints, short hurdles, long hurdles, short distance and long distance — compete over two races per meet with the point totals from those runs determining the champion of each group. Meanwhile, American Jacory Patterson won the men’s 400m in a 2025 world-best time of 43.98 seconds with Jereem Richards from Trinidad and Tobago second in 44.32 with a 1.3 m/sec wind. Patterson, third in the event at world indoors at Nanjing in March, set a personal best in the victory from lane eight. American Kenny Bednarek, the 200m runner-up at the Tokyo and Paris Olympics and 2022 world cham-pionships, captured the men’s 100 in a wind-aided 9.79 seconds with Jamaica’s Oblique Seville second in 9.84, both with a +2.4 m/sec wind assist me-a-ning the time cannot be counted for record purposes. Jamaica’s Ackera Nugent won the women’s 100 in 11.09, matching her personal best to defeat compatriot Megan Tapper by 0.24 of a second with a +0.9 m/sec wind. In the women’s short sprint, Melissa Jefferson-Wooden of the US reigned supreme while Briton Josh Kerr took the men’s short distance group. Jefferson-Wooden won Friday’s 100 metres and took third in Saturday’s 200m in a personal best 22.15 seconds for 18 total points, edging out her Paris relay team-mate Gabby Thomas (17), who finished second in the standings. The 1500m world champion Kerr, who leaves Miami $100,000 richer, won his signature event on Friday and finished fifth in Saturday’s 800m in a personal best 1:45.01 for 16 points, two points clear of Canadian Marco Arop.— Published in Dawn, May 5th, 2025