When Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone powered though the final curve of the 400-meter final at world championships, she glanced to her right and saw something that hadn’t been there in a while. Another runner. She had a race on her hands. The best way to explain how McLaughlin-Levrone became the first woman…

TOKYO (AP) — Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone became the first woman in nearly 40 years to crack 48 seconds in the 400 meters Thursday, running 47.78 in an historically fast one-lap race at the world championships.Pushed by second-place finisher Marileidy Paulino, who clocked a 47.98 of he own on the rain-slickened track in Tokyo, McLaughlin-Levrone captured her first global title in the 400 flat after dominating the hurdles for the last four years. The second and third-fastest times in history in this race trail only the 47.60 by East Germany's Marita Koch, set Oct. 6, 1985 — one of the last remaining vestiges in track from an Eastern Bloc doping system that was exposed years after it ended. Third-place finisher Salwa Eid Nasar clocked 48.19, a time that would have won the last two world championships. Nobody had come within a half-second of Koch's mark until this race. “You don't run something like that without amazing women pushing you to it,” McLaughlin-Levrone said. When she crossed the line, McLaughlin-Levrone…