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EUGENE, Ore. — It only made sense that Sydney McLaughlin would run the last, victorious lap of world championships for the United States.
It only made sense she would win that race by a lot.
America’s burgeoning speed star turned a close 4×400-meter relay into a laugher on the anchor leg Sunday, putting the final stamp on the first worlds held in the U.S. and delivering America’s record 33rd medal of the meet.
It was their 13th gold, one short of the all-time mark.
After taking the baton from Britton Wilson, McLaughlin turned a .73-second lead into a 2.93-second blowout over Jamaica, adding this burst of speed to the world record she set two nights earlier in the 400 hurdles.
This one was especially sweet, as it also marked the 14th and final world gold for 36-year-old Allyson Felix, who came out of retirement to run in the preliminary of the 4×400 and, so, gets a medal. She finishes her career with a record 20 world medals, overall.
“We’re a family, we stick together,” McLaughlin said. “Allyson came out of retirement to get us here, so we wanted to do this.”
The U.S. team, also featuring Talitha Diggs and Abby Steiner, who was part of the winning 4×100 relay team the night before, won the women’s race in 3 minutes, 17.79 seconds.
The 33 medals were three more than the U.S. collected in 2017.
Other records fell, too — in the very first and very last action of the last session at hot-and-sunny Hayward Stadium, the 25,000-seat gem built at University of Oregon to bring the worlds to Eugene.
Nigeria’s Tobi Amusan opened the evening by setting the record for the 100-meter hurdles in the semifinals: 12.12 seconds. She came back about 90 minutes later to win the gold medal. Her medal-race time was actually faster — 12.06 — but the wind was too strong, so that mark doesn’t go in the books.
“When I watched the record, I was like ‘Whoa, who did that?'” Amusan said.
And after McLaughlin was done with her last lap, pole vaulter Armand Duplantis of Sweden cleared 6.21…
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Source : espn
