Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, who recently concluded her 2024 season after racing at the Brussels Diamond League, revealed the reason behind choosing track and field as her career in her book Far Beyond Gold, published in January this year. She wrote that it was not the financial incentives, but the ‘addiction’ to improvement that track and field offered, that drew her toward the sport.
The American hurdler recently concluded her Paris Olympics campaign, where she won two gold medals in the 400m and 4x400m relay. Besides her Olympic performances, McLaughlin-Levrone also penned down her journey as a track athlete, capturing the different moments of her career, in her book, Far Beyond Gold.In her memoir, the 22-year-old wrote about her decision to become a track athlete, saying that she wasn’t compelled to become an athlete because of money.
“No one becomes a track-and-field athlete for the money. There’s not a crazy amount of it in our sport, like there is in basketball or football. No one does it for the fame. Not a ton of that either. And while running can feel good, especially when your body releases endorphins, it almost always produces an extraordinary amount of pain,” Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone wrote.