Sydni McMillan’s Perfect Run

Entering the 2024 outdoor track & field season, the East Carolina program record for the 100-meter hurdles stood at 13.31 seconds. It was set by Cheyenne Hutchinson nearly a decade gone by, back in 2015 when the then-junior won the American Athletic Conference title in the event.

Since that run, the record stood untouched. No one even came particularly close. Hunter Roberts ran 13.45 back in 2018, but that was as near as any individual got to taking down the Hutchinson mark.

Coming into the year, Sydni McMillan had an all-conditions personal best in the event of 13.51 seconds. The Pirate senior had shown well the previous outdoor season with a seventh-place finish at the conference meet before breaking out during the indoor season, running the second fastest 60m hurdles in program history and earning a silver medal at the American Indoor Championships. It was a sign of things to come.

McMillan made her 2024 outdoor debut at the Raleigh Relays hosted by NC State. At the meet, running in just-over wind legal conditions, she made a leap. Her time of 13.33 seconds vaulted her to second-fastest in program history under any conditions and placed her fourth at the meet.

The Pleasant Garden, N.C. native would follow her Raleigh Relays performance up with a victory at the 10th annual Bill Carson Invitational run on her home track. Albeit in a slower time, McMillan was showing a growing command of the event as she pushed deeper into the season.

Still, it would be a couple of more weeks before she posted an eyebrow-raising result. To that point, through the first two weeks of April, McMillan's results were good—the hallmarks of a senior showing improvement and progressing as she should. But they weren't shocking. Sure, 13.33 was a personal record by better than a tenth of a second, but what would come would make that performance a fun memory of the before. What would come was Sydni McMillan's perfect run.

From April 19 to May 23, McMillan broke the East Carolina record in the 100m hurdles four times, lowering the mark but a stunning 0.31 seconds.

That brilliant streak of running kicked off on the weekend of April 19th and 20th. It was a two-meet swing and a double-PR weekend for the senior. Entering the Wake Forest Invitational that Friday, McMillan had gotten close, but not edged faster than the program record. If she was going to break the mark, it would make sense that it would be by a fine margin. That's not how it played out, though.

Instead, at Wake Forest, McMillan shattered the ECU record with a win-legal dash of 13.17 seconds. It took 0.14 seconds off of the record and made her the prohibitive favorite to take the American Athletic Conference title.

That time stood for not even 24 hours. The next afternoon over at North Carolina A&T, McMillan ran it back and ran it faster, setting a new standard at 13.16 seconds. Though, McMillan wasn't first across the line in that race, being paced by professional sprinter Paula Salmon who dipped under 13 seconds on the day.

Maybe McMillan needed to take second in a race, being pulled along by a faster runner, to realize her potential. Maybe she didn't and it was there all along. Either way, after cruising through her heat in the prelims at the American Athletic Conference Championships, it's possible that McMillan and her coach, Udon Cheek, were the only two people who knew she was capable of what came next.

As she pulled clear of the field in the final strides, McMillan raised her arms in triumph. She knew the gold medal was hers. A gold medal she greatly cherished and well earned. Then she saw the clock.

13.06 seconds. Wind legal. McMillan had throttled her own record. She had taken a full quarter of a second off of the East Carolina benchmark from just three weeks prior.

The result also positioned her positively heading into the NCAA East First Round meet. Coming into the meet seeded 15th, McMillan could be penciled in as a chance—an athlete with a fighting crack at making it through to the NCAA Championships in Eugene, Ore. Still, no Pirate had ever made nationals in the event, and it was far from a sure thing with 12 athletes holding sub-13 second season bests heading into the Lexington, Ky. meet.

The first step was getting out of the first round. If McMillan could do that, the math would become a lot simpler. To do so, she would need to either be one of the top three in her heat, or one of the three next fastest times out of all heats.

She didn't get a great start, lagging a bit behind the field in the opening steps, but her raw speed carried her from there. McMillan roared back, taking second in her heat to earn the "Big Q" and earn her spot in the quarterfinal round—the final barrier to nationals.

Not only that, but McMillan's time of 13.00 (rounded up from 12.999) cleared the program record once again and made her the first Pirate to ever toe the line of the 13-second barrier.

She entered the quarterfinal round with the 10th fastest preliminary time. Now the pressure was on, the Pirate was a favorite to get through. There was hope of advancing, and with the same qualifying standard as the first round, she knew what she would need to do.

McMillan had an added advantage in the quarterfinals, too. She was competing in the third and final heat, knowing what time she would need if she fell out of the top three in the heat. As fate would have it, that was the way it worked out. It wouldn't have to be a PR, but it would have to be fast.

It was. At 13.02 seconds, McMillan finished well clear, by 0.13 seconds of the final time qualifier, 10th overall in the competition, and making it official: Sydni McMillan was on to Eugene.

She was the first NCAA Championships qualifier in two years for ECU and the first ever in the 100m hurdles. She had lowered the program record by 0.31 seconds and collected fabulous hardware along the way—but McMillan wasn't done yet.

She came into the NCAA Outdoor Championships with the 22nd fastest seed time. By conventional wisdom, McMillan shouldn't have sniffed All-American status. Sydni McMillan doesn't play by conventional wisdom.

She ran a strong race, 13.03 seconds, and finished 17th. She was 0.008 seconds away from Second-Team All-American honors but still came away with Honorable Mention status. It was a triumphant success for a runner who entered the season with a personal best greater than a half second higher. She didn't win the thing, she didn't make Saturday's final, but to be a beacon of success, she didn't have to.

In the end, not every great sports story finishes with a conquering champion dancing around their vanquished opponent in the ring. In fact, most don't. Sydni McMillan's didn't, but it didn't make it any less beautiful. On the contrary, it might have been what made it a little more perfect.

Most of us can't relate to the person who has it all, but I would hope that all of us can find something of ourselves in the champion of spirit and soul who gave us what they had: their heart.

Players Mentioned

Sydni McMillan

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