Wayde Van Niekerk returns to the podium: Seven years since he was last on a global 400m podium, and eight since he was Olympic Champion and broke the world record, South African superstar Van Niekerk will return from the proverbial wilderness in his pet event at last with a bronze medal. Shortly after defending his 400m world title in 2017, he suffered a horrific injury which ultimately kept him out of high level competition till 2020. He was unable to make a global final until 2022, where he finished 5th in the Eugene World Championships, and then followed that up with a 7th place finish at the 2023 edition in Budapest. Since this injury, he has been unable to break the 44 second barrier in the event. In fact he has not been able to even approach his quite remarkable world record of 43.03s, but he has been getting faster each year since his return, and came very close last year with a 44.08s clocking in July. While I expect this improvement to continue into 2024, culminating in a couple sub 44s clockings, including one in the Olympic final, it will only be enough for the bronze, due to the expected quality of the field. Newly crowned 400m world champion Antonio Watson of Jamaica and the former world, and current Olympic champion at the distance, Steven Gardiner of the Bahamas are who I expect to finish ahead of him on the podium. Gardiner was the odds-on favorite to reclaim his 400m World title last year, being the World leader at 43.74s, his fastest time since 2019, when he became World Champion for the first time. Alas, injury struck just like it did in the 2022 season, and thus he was once again out of the running. Up stepped the relatively unknown Jamaican, fresh from a second place finish at the Jamaican trials. After running a massive personal best in the semi finals of 44.13s to become the fifth fastest in the world for 2023, he came close to this time again, running a strong 44.22s to become World Champion, showing that he saves his best for the big occasion. Therefore I expect Gardiner to win gold and Watson silver, with all three men going below 44s. The 400m field for men however is incredibly deep, with the likes of former World Champion, Michael Norman of the USA; the only man besides Gardiner to break 44s in the event last year, the Zambian Muzala Samukonga and perennial global medalist Kirani James all expected to push hard for a place on the podium as well. This is without mentioning several other men who are capable of running below 44.5s, in what promises to be a continuation of a golden age for 400m sprinting.
Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone returns with a vengeance: A season after competing in the flat 400m for the first time as a pro after conquering all in the 400m hurdles, McLaughlin-Levrone is still widely seen as the favorite for the gold in Paris, despite being unable to compete at the 2023 World Championships due to a knee injury. This is mainly because of her utter dominance over the latter event for the past few seasons, as well as being last season’s 400m flat world leader at 48.74s, getting faster with each race she had. In fact, she is seen as an outside bet to finally be the one to break one of the sport’s ‘unbreakable’ records, the 400m world record of 47.60s which has belonged to Marita Koch of East Germany since 1985. To take the gold she will probably have to run a new personal best (PB), as is the case with the men, the 400m for women is extremely deep. Defending world champion Marileidy Paulino of the Dominican Republic ran 48.76s to win the world title last year, and along with silver and bronze medalists Natalia Kaczmarek of Poland and Sada Williams of Barbados, all are in good form and tend to save their best for the big occasion. However of these three, I only expect Paulino to medal, taking home the silver in a relatively close race with McLaughlin-Levrone. That is because of the continued emergence of NCAA track stars, Britton Wilson and Rhasidat Adeleke of the USA and Ireland respectively, who were the third and fourth fastest women in the world last year at 49.13s and 49.20s. In fact Adeleke just missed the podium at the World Championships last year finishing 4th, and I expect her to be the one to take the step forward and take the bronze, breaking the 49s barrier in the process in what promises to be a thrilling final. In fact, with the return of 2019 world champion Salwa Eid-Nasser from a two year whereabouts failure ban last year, and her continued return to form, she could also be a dark horse for the title, as she became the third fastest woman ever with her 48.14s clocking in when becoming world champion.