By Jack Pfeifer // Photos by Kim Spir

EUGENE, Ore. – Dalilah Muhammad won the Olympic Trials 400-meter hurdles on Sunday with the fastest time in the world – establishing her as the favorite in the Olympic Games next month in Brazil – and a little more than a second later, here came 16-year-old Sydney McLaughlin, who finished 3^rd and made the team with her.

“I can’t believe this is happening,” said McLaughlin, who just completed her junior year at Union Catholic High School in New Jersey. She is believed to be the youngest American to make the Olympic track team in 36 years.

“I think the first day was definitely the hardest,” said McLaughlin, whose time of 54.14 set a world Junior record. “Coming up here for the first time and running on this track, in this type of competition … as the rounds went on it definitely got easier to manage the nerves … but it’s a lot of mental preparation… My coach had a lot to do with that. I had a mental breakdown the first day, and without them I wouldn’t have stepped on the line.”

Muhammad ran 52.88, the fastest time in the world in three years and a personal best by nearly a second. The American record is 52.47, the world record 52.34. She took control of the race from the start.

Muhammad, who graduated from Cardozo High School in Queens, won the silver medal in the World Championships in 2013 but had done little since. “’14 and ’15 were two very difficult years for me,” Muhammad said. “I think my belief in myself kept me going, and knowing I could be better than I was in 2013.” She ran 53.83 that year.

“I just wanted to keep that going, and this year when it wasn’t going as planned, I made a coaching change, and I’m grateful that I did. It was a hard decision to make, but it paid off. I’m so thankful for that.”

McLaughlin appeared to be 5^th or 6^th around the turn but made a strong move entering the final straightaway. She ended up sandwiched between Ashley Spencer, 2^nd at 54.02, and Kori Carter, 4^th at 54.47.

“She is a beast,” Carter said of McLaughlin. “She’s the truth. I was in every single heat with her and she carries herself like a pro and I know she will represent the USA amazingly.”

It was a day of high drama on this final day of the U.S. Trials as competitors literally threw themselves at the line desperate to get on the team to Rio.

In the end, it was also a day for favorites, as Jenny Simpson won the women’s 1,500, Matthew Centrowitz won the men’s and Molly Huddle doubled back from the 10k by winning the 5, though she said she expects to give up her spot in the shorter race.

Behind Simpson and Centrowitz, there were wars taking place for the third positions in each 1,500.

In the women’s, behind Shannon Rowbury, who got 2^nd, Brenda Martinez had a precarious hold on 3^rd with Amanda Eccleston bearing down on her. Both sprawled to the track at the finish as the big crowd of more than 22,000 – most of whom backed Martinez because of the disaster she experienced a week earlier in the 800 – waited with apprehension.

Finally, Martinez’s name flashed on the board. She had beaten Eccleston by .03. “I just kept telling myself not to give up,” Martinez said.

In the men’s 15, Centrowitz won in a meet-record 3:34.09, followed closely by the New Jersey native Robby Andrews, 2^nd in 3:34.88. Not far up the track, Ben Blankenship and the veteran Leo Manzano were battling side by side for the final spot, with Blankenship finally prevailing.

“With 300 to go,” Andrews said. “I saw Matt, Ben and Leo ahead of me. ‘Just get one of them!’ I told myself.”

For Centrowitz, who was 4^th in the London Olympics, this matches the two Olympic teams his father, Matt, made in 1976 and 1980.

“I was joking with my dad last night,“ Centrowitz said, “he was a two-time Olympian and I am now. He can’t hold that over me.”

The elder Centrowitz, who was in attendance for Sunday’s race, attended Power Memorial Academy in New York City before going on to Manhattan College and the University of Oregon.

Farther back in the men’s 15, the Columbia graduates Johnny Gregorek and Kyle Merber finished 6^th and 9^th respectively.

In the women’s race, the New Yorker Mary Cain was in the lead group for much of the race but eventually faded to 11^th, running 4:13.45, nine seconds behind Simpson and seven seconds out of 3^rd. The Cornell graduate Morgan Uceny was in contention on the final lap but faded to 5^th.

In the 5,000, Nicole Tully, who runs for the New York Athletic Club, appeared to be clipped from behind midway through the race and fell to the track. She regained her footing but, bloodied, stepped off the track with five laps remaining.

Emily Infeld finished 4^th and it is possible that she, as with Huddle, will forgo the 5k and stay with the 10, in which case Abbey D’Agostino, who finished 5^th, would make the team.

For Andrews, Blankenship, Martinez and Infield, this will be their first Olympic team. It would be for D’Agostino as well. Making the team ahead of her in the 5k were Shelby Houlihan and Kim Conley.

The women’s 200 produced yet another team member from the Empire State, as the little-known Deajah Stevens roared to 2^nd place, finishing just .05 behind Tori Bowie as Allyson Felix, the defending Olympic champion, failed to make the team.

Stevens graduated from Cardozo High School – the same school Muhammad attended – after previously attending two other high schools in the New York area. Bowie ran 22.25, Stevens 22.30, followed Jenna Prandini 22.53 and Felix 22.54.

“It hasn’t hit me yet,” Stevens said. “I’m speechless.”

Said Felix, who won the 400 earlier in the Trials, “I’m disappointed. All year I planned for this race.” She had been bothered all week by a sore ankle. In Sunday’s final she was slow coming out of the blocks and had to chase the field down the straightaway. Prandini sprawled to the track at the line to get 3^rd by inches. “I don’t really know what happened,” Prandini said, “but it got the job done.”

New Yorkers also made the team in the heptathlon and the pole vault.

The vault was no surprise, as Jenn Suhr, the Olympic champion, won her 10^th national title, but the heptathlon was a different story.

In that, Heather Miller-Koch recorded a lifetime-best total of 6.423 points to finish 2^nd and make her first Olympic team. Miller-Koch, 29, who moved to New York City from the Midwest to pursue a career in nursing as well as try to improve as a heptathlete, was close to lifetime bests in all three of her events on Sunday, with 20-9 in the long jump, 134-7 in the javelin and 2:09.97 in the 800.

“I can’t really describe the feeling right now,” she said. “I just put it all out there.”

In all, five competitors from the New York City area – Miller-Koch, Stevens, McLaughlin, Muhammad and Andrews – along with two others from upstate New York, Suhr and Huddle, made the U.S. team in a single day.

For Muhammad, who now leads the world in her event, it was particularly poignant. A woman from NYC has never won an individual gold medal in track and field in the Olympics.