Dalilah Muhammad

Dalilah Muhammad competed in various track and field events at high school, including the hurdles, sprints, and high jump. While at Benjamin N. Cardozo High School in Bayside, Queens, she won the 2008 New York State and Nike Outdoor Nationals titles in the 400 m hurdles.[6] During that period, she also gained her first international experience. At the 2007 World Youth Championships in Athletics, she took the 400 m hurdles gold medal.[7] Muhammad earned 2007 Gatorade Female Athlete of the Year for New York State.[8]

In 2008, she enrolled at the University of Southern California on a sports scholarship, majoring in business. Joining the USC Trojans track team, she competed extensively in her first season. At the Pacific-10 Conference meet, she was runner-up in the 400 m hurdles, fourth in the 4×400-meter relay, and also set a personal record of 13.79 seconds as a finalist in the 100-meter hurdles.[9] The NCAA Outdoor Championship saw her set a 400 m hurdles best of 56.49 seconds and finish in third place in the final. She won the national junior title that year and was the silver medallist at the 2009 Pan American Junior Athletics Championships.[10] In her second year at USC, she was a runner-up at the Pac-10 championships but narrowly missed out on the NCAA final. The 2011 outdoor season saw her repeat her Pac-10-second place, and a personal record of 56.04 seconds in the NCAA semi-finals led to a sixth-place finish in the 400 m hurdles final.[6]

In 2012, she set personal records in the sprint hurdles events, running 8.23 seconds for the 60-meter hurdles and 13.33 seconds for the 100 m hurdles. She ranked fifth in the latter event at the Pac-12 meet, where she placed third in the 400 m hurdles. She was again an NCAA finalist in her speciality, coming in fifth, and she also participated in the heats at the 2012 United States Olympic Trials.[9] She ended her career as a USC Trojan athlete as the school's third fastest ever 400 m hurdler and a four-time NCAA All-American.[6]

After graduating from USC, she chose to compete professionally in the 400 m hurdles. She improved her personal best in the 2013 season with 55.97 then 54.94 seconds in California. In her IAAF Diamond League debut, she placed fourth at the Shanghai Golden Grand Prix with a time of 54.74 seconds. She won at the Memorial Primo Nebiolo in Italy in 54.66, then she placed third at the Bislett Games in Norway with a run of 54.33 seconds.

At the 2013 USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships, she improved her personal record by half a second with a run of 53.83 in the final to win her first national title in the 400 m hurdles.[11] Muhammad has represented Nike since 2013.[12] At the 2014 USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships, Muhammad qualified for the 400 m hurdles but did not start.[13] At the 2015 USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships, she placed 7th with a time of 57.31.[14] At the 2016 United States Olympic Trials, she won the 400-meter hurdles in 52.88. At the 2016 Summer Olympics, she won gold in the 400-meter hurdles. She defended her title at the 2017 USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships, winning with another personal time of 52.64.

Muhammad broke the 400-meter hurdles world record at the 2019 USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships with a time of 52.20 seconds, improving Yuliya Pechonkina's 16-year-old record of 52.34 (2003).[15][16] Muhammad is only the second woman in the history of the 400m hurdles, after Sally Gunnell, to have won the Olympic title and broken the world record. In September, the IAAF ratified Muhammad's time as the official world record.[17] She won the gold medal at the 2019 World Championships, improving her time by 0.04 seconds, setting the new world record with a time of 52.16 seconds.[18][19] At the end of the season she was selected for the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Award by the U.S.A. Track and Field Federation.[20] and by Track and Field News at its World Women's Athlete of the Year, voted their first choice by 24 of the publication's 36-member panel.[21]