Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone vs Shericka Jackson: an explosive 60m duel in Boston

As athletes emerge from winter training and into the first few races of the year, there’s no lumbering into the athletics season like sleepy hibernating bears. It’s more like, BAM, let’s get two world champions in different disciplines to go head-to-head in a blink-and-you-miss-it women's 60m dash.

This is what will happen at the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix in Brighton, Massachusetts on Saturday (4 February), the second of seven events on the World Athletics gold tour calendar**. The first edition took place in Karlsruhe, Germany on 27 January, with mostly European athletes blowing away the cobwebs. Briton Dina Asher-Smith**, the 2019 200m world champion, flew out the blocks to equal the long-standing women’s 60m meeting record of 7.04s to lay down the gauntlet for her rivals.

In Boston, more of the North American and Caribbean nations are set to emerge from brutal winter-training regimes, including Jamaica’s Shericka Jackson and USA home athlete Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone who will go head-to-head in the shortest field event on the calendar.

The showdown is much anticipated, despite the pair being the world’s best in different distances – Jackson is the fastest woman alive in 200m and McLaughlin-Levrone has the same accolade in the 400m hurdles.

With around seven seconds deciding the race, you’d be forgiven for not looking much past Jackson for the win.

In July, the 28-year-old ran the second fastest 200m time in history, a scintillating 21.45s, at the World Athletics Championships in Oregon, leapfrogging compatriot and reigning two-time 200m Olympic champion, Elaine Thompson-Herah, in the all-time list. The only woman to have gone faster than Jackson in the distance is the late Florence Griffith Joyner, the American securing a time of 21.34s at Seoul 1988.

Lesson learned

Jackson’s super-quick time was forged in the fires of Tokyo 2020 disappointment in which she missed out on the semi-final by one-thousandth of a second after slowing before the line. Lesson learned; Jackson’s response was swift claiming the world title 12 months later.

Her 60m personal best is 7.04s – the same mark Asher-Smith achieved in the first race of the season – clocked in the final of the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Belgrade, Serbia in 2022. The world-leading time that year came from Switzerland’s Mujinga Kambundji in the same race, securing a blistering 6.96s.

Jackson, who initially started out life as a 400m-runner and still doesn’t consider herself a sprinter, will no doubt be eyeing that mark as she looks ahead to the season, which includes the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary in August.

Up against her on Saturday will be one-lap phenom, McLaughlin-Levrone, already a two-time Olympic champion and three-time world champion at age 23. Oh, and the Tokyo 2020 triumph was won in a Games record and the world title in a best-ever time for women of 50.68s.

Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone and Shericka Jackson: Out of their comfort zone

The reigning 400m hurdles Olympic and world champion may not at first glance seem much of a threat to the reluctant sprint specialist Jackson, and yet, McLaughlin-Levrone’s run will be equally anticipated.

Athletics fans are salivating at the idea that this experience could indicate that McLaughlin-Levrone has the 400m flat in mind. Already outstanding at the lung-busting 400m hurdles, McLaughlin-Levrone is the only woman to have busted the 51-second mark with a 50.68s run in Eugene and also claims the five of the six fastest times in history. Not only that, but her time would have placed her seventh in the world in the 400m flat at the championships, which is from where all the excitement stems.

Not surprisingly, McLaughlin-Levrone, who was voted World Athlete of the Year for 2022 alongside superstar pole vaulter Armand Duplantis of Sweden, has far-reaching aims in mind, as she exclusively revealed to Olympics.com in October. Only five women have run the 400m flat in less than 50s, but McLaughlin wants to do this in the hurdles. She also has ambitions to run both disciplines at a major championship but, she says, only if the schedule allows.

So, the pair are racing the same event but in their own lanes, with seven seconds potentially shaping their way toward Paris 2024 in 17 months’ time. Bottom line though, the kudos of a race win – it's as simple and as complex as that.

What's up next in the 2023 athletics season?

The overall tour winners are guaranteed a berth at the Glasgow, Scotland, 2024 World Athletics Indoor Championships.

The next events on the World Athletics gold tour are Orlen Copernicus Cup in Torun (8 February), the Millrose Games in New York (11 February), the Meeting Hauts de France Pas de Calais in Liévin (15 February), the World Indoor Tour meeting in Madrid (22 February) and the British Indoor Grand Prix in Birmingham (25 February).