Famous track and field athlete and outspoken Christian Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone recently credited God after she became the first woman to win two consecutive Olympic gold medals in the 400-meter hurdles last week. As the 25-year-old athlete brought home the monumental gold medal in Paris, she made sure to praise God.
“I credit all that I do to God. He’s given me a gift. He’s given me a drive to just want to continue to improve upon myself,” she said during press conference after the win. “I have a platform and I want to use it to glorify Him, and so whenever I step on the track, it’s always the prayer of ‘God let me be the vessel in which you’re glorified’ whatever the result is, how I conduct myself, how I carry myself, not just how I perform.”
She further expressed that regardless of outcomes, she will praise God, demonstrating that she does not rely on circumstances as the strength of her faith. “So it’s just freedom in knowing that regardless of what happens, He’s going to get the praise through me,” she added. “And yeah, that’s why I do what I do.”
Speaking about the race in which she won, McLaughlin-Levrone said, “I’m feeling great. Honestly, woke up. Surreal. … Honestly, you just got to run through the line. You never really know what’s going on behind you. And you never know how close anybody is with the crowd screaming like that. So you just got to keep running your race, clear those 10 hurdles, and just sprint to the line.”
The standout athlete continued, “You can always tell when it’s going to be a fast race. The crowd is huge. But, also, the field was so deep that I knew it was going to take a fast time out there, and the track was very fast, too. So that also helps.”
In an interview last year, the gold medalist explained, “That is the most valuable thing. [My goal is] being able to share that truth with people and allow them to come to know and love the Lord in the way in which I have come to know and love.”
She continued explaining that she needs God first and foremost to succeed. “God has been so kind in just allowing me the opportunity to, first of all, fail without Him and realize my need for Him. Living my life for so long apart from Him and trying to succeed in a worldly measure of what success looks like, it always left me empty even when I attained it,” McLaughlin-Levrone said.
The athlete expressed, that while perfection is impossible among mortal humans, Chrisitians should still strive to achieve excellence. “In appreciating Him as our Savior, we humble ourselves to realize that we are not perfect,” she said. “The Lord is sufficient in all things, and being able to glorify Him throughout my career and through my life on the track has shown me a purpose bigger than myself.”
Featured image credit: Erik van Leeuwen, attribution: Erik van Leeuwen (bron: Wikipedia)., GFDL , via Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sydney_McLaughlin_4x400m_Oregon_2022.jpg