Even before Sydney McLaughlin made waves at the Rio Olympics, she was already well-known for her speed. In fact, anyone who saw her race as a child knew that she was special. She was winning races from the time she was 6 years old — and winning by a long, long stretch.
In her first hurdles race, McLaughlin was going off pure instinct, hitting hurdles, misstepping, and overshooting her jumps. "There was no form whatsoever," her high school coach Mike McCabe told Bleacher Report. Nevertheless, she always won. Her first-ever time was 1:01.4, which broke every school record.
Within just a few months of training, the 14-year-old McLaughlin was running the 400-meter hurdle at just 55.63 seconds, which was the ninth-fastest recorded time in the entire country that year. Just like that, she solidified her place in history as a child prodigy. It's clear that McLaughlin was destined to be a legendary hurdler.
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