America's Sydney McLaughlin took a huge chunk out of her own world record at Tokyo 2020 here as she clocked 51.46sec to win an Olympic women’s 400 metres hurdles final that delivered a competitive spectacle to rival the previous day’s men’s version it so strangely resembled.

Achieving a world record at the Olympic Games is the ultimate track and field achievement, but as the athletics programme gets underway tomorrow morning at the Olympic Stadium in Tokyo, a little short of five years since the last one in Rio de Janeiro, it is prospective personal rivalries that command attention.

Eliud Kipchoge, the first man to run the marathon in under two hours, and Dalilah Muhammad, who twice broke the world 400 metres hurdles record in a year that saw her become world champion, have been named the respective male and female athletes of the year at the World Athletics Awards here.

Local hero Mutaz Essa Barshim delivered a much-anticipated high jump gold here to a Stadium packed as never before with home fans at the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) World Championships 

Olympic champion Dalilah Muhammad broke the world record in the women's 400 metres hurdles on the final day of the United States Outdoor Track and Field Championships in Des Moines.

Aries Merritt, the 110 metres hurdles world record holder who underwent a kidney transplant a week after winning bronze at the 2015 International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) World Championships, will return to this year's version of the event in London in full health.

It is a straightforward enough template: Usain Bolt, triple Olympic 100 and 200 metres champion.