Shaunae Miller dreams of a third Olympic 400m gold, world record

At the 2016 Rio Olympics, Shaunae Miller-Uibo dived across the finish line in the women’s 400m final. When she stood up, it was as the Olympic champion. Five years later, in the delayed Tokyo Olympics, she stormed past the field to become the second woman to defend her 400m Olympic crown.

The Bahamas sprinter has been away from athletics for a few years now owing to a knee injury and maternity break. The 32-year-old, however, has set her sights now on a 400m world record that has stood since the erstwhile East Germany’s Marita Koch clocked 47.60secs in 1985 to the disbelief of many.

“I have won every title there is in 400m, so for me it is now about setting new goals,” Miller-Uibo, the event ambassador of the Vedanta Delhi Half Marathon, said on Thursday. “I would love to give the world record a crack. In recent years we have seen women go under 48 seconds, and I believe I am more than capable of doing that as well. If we keep racing each other, we can push each other towards it."

Miller-Uibo has a long list of accolades in a highly competitive event. She also won a gold and two silver at the World Championships (she took bronze in 200m at the 2017 Worlds).

Her athletics career, though, took a back seat when she gave birth to a son in 2023 and daughter last year. This year, she has spent time working on regaining her speed on the track.

“Coming back from two pregnancies, I had to give myself a lot of patience. I wanted to jump straight back in where I left off, but there was a lot of building to do again,” she said. “This season showed me that the speed is back, and I am really looking forward to getting back into the 400m. Having my kids there has given me a different purpose in the sport. I get to show them what mummy does, and hopefully inspire them.”

She has mostly competed in 200m this season. But as she starts preparation for the 2028 LA Olympics, she has an important decision to make – which event to compete in.

“For LA, I am only going to do one event, and we are not sure which one yet,” she said. “I have always wanted an Olympic medal in the 200m. At the same time, no one has ever won three in the 400m. So, we will play with both and make that decision.”

There’s still some time to take a final call, but Miller-Uibo’s legacy has been forged in the 400m, starting from that tight race in Rio, where the American great Allyson Felix gave her a tough fight.

She still remembers finding inspiration from an unexpected source for that win in Rio. A day before the final, she watched the men’s 400m final in which South Africa’s Wayde van Niekerk took off at full gallop right at the start before winning gold with a new world record.

“(Me and my coach) saw Wayde shoot up from the gun. I was like, oh man, I think he's going to fade. And he didn't. He kept going and we were like, ‘we're doing that tomorrow’.”

In her own final, Felix closed the gap in the final metres. “I hear footsteps, then see her in my view. I just remember leaning for the line, trying to dip. But I ended up diving across the line and taking the gold.

“It was just an amazing feeling.”

She felt that high of success again at the Tokyo Olympics. At LA, she hopes to experience it again.