Paris 2024 Olympics: Dominican athlete Marileidy Paulino erases the historic record of a French legend

La Dominicaine Paulino a fait tomber un record vieux de 28 ans. XinHua – Lui Siu Wai

L'athlète dominicaine a remporté le 400 m olympique, ce vendredi 9 août, et établi un nouveau record du monde de la distance. 

A few days after making history by lighting the Olympic cauldron alongside Teddy Riner, French athlete Marie-José Perec has been erased from the records. Indeed, Dominican Marileidy Paulino  dazzled Paris and the French public with the 400m gold, breaking the national icon's Olympic record.

A 28-year-old record

Paulino, silver medalist in Tokyo in 2021, became Olympic track lap champion with the fastest time in the history of the Games, 48''17, a little better than Pérec, who had lit the Olympic cauldron at the start of the Olympics, for his second title in Atlanta in 1996 (48''25).

Paulino, in the lead from the 150m mark, opened up a huge gap on a very high-level competition, with the eight finalists in less than 50 seconds, a first. On a purple track soaked by a short storm, the 27-year-old Dominican thus achieved the 6th best time of all time on the track, becoming the 4th fastest woman in history.

Close to the world record

She came within 57 hundredths of a second of the world record of the German Marita Koch (47.60 in 1985). The Dominican had won silver in Tokyo in 2021, behind the Bahamian Shaunae Miller-Uibo, who did not qualify for the final in Paris. Paulino also won silver in the 4x400m relay in Japan.