"I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d stolen it" - When Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone recalled feeling guilty about picking a doll from 'garbage bag'

Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone once recalled that she felt guilty and couldn't sleep for a whole night after picking a doll from the garbage bag during her childhood. The American sprinter considered it a theft and began looking for its owner the following day.

McLaughlin-Levrone was born into an athletic family with her father, Willie, a 400m semifinalist from the 1984 Olympic Trials, and her mother, Mary, a collegiate distance runner. The New Jersey native followed up the suit and started running from an early age.

The 25-year-old is now widely regarded as the greatest 400m hurdler in history, having broken the world record six times and winning four Olympic gold medals. She is a devout Christian and always credits God for her success, and her piousness was visible right from her childhood days.

The four-time Olympic champion wrote in her 2024 memoir 'Far Beyond Gold: Running from Fear to Faith' that during her childhood, she once picked a doll from a garbage age to follow her friends but couldn't sleep for the whole night, feeling guilty about having stolen someone else's thing.

"After they [her friends] scavenged through what they wanted, I saw a new doll in a box, completely unopened. I wanted to take it so badly, but my gut was telling me that we should knock on the door and ask first," she wrote. "Still, since the garbage bag had already been ripped to shreds and my friends began riding off, I took it."

"As soon as I walked through my house’s front door, I immediately regretted taking the doll. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d stolen it. Riddled with guilt, I hardly slept that night."

The 25-year-old began looking for the owner of the doll on the following day but claimed that she never found them.

"The next day, I went back to where we’d found the toys and knocked on the closest houses, looking to see if the doll belonged to someone who wanted it back. (I never found the doll’s original owner.)," Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone added

McLaughlin-Levrone explained that she was afraid of disobeying her parents and God and as a result didn't want to keep the doll. The American sprinter also didn't share the same apartment with her husband Andre Levrone before their marriage in 2022.

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"We had fallen short in the past when it came to our sexual purity" - Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone on living in different apartments before marriage

Olympic Games Paris 2024: Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone in action (Image: Getty)

Sydney Mclaughlin-Levrone met her husband, former NFL Player Andre Levrone in 2020, and the couple got engaged the following year. They had started living together in an apartment in Los Angeles before McLaughlin-Levrone felt 'convicted' and they mutually decided to live separately until their marriage.

"Most people in this modern world don’t have a problem with sharing a bed or sleeping together before marriage," wrote Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone in her 2024 memoir. "But Andre and I had committed to saving both of those things until our wedding day."

"From the beginning of our relationship, Andre and I both confessed that we had fallen short in the past when it came to our sexual purity. We wanted to ensure that we honored God by following what the Bible teaches about relationships between men and women."

The couple later tied the knot in May 2022 at Early Mountain Vineyards in Virginia and while McLaughlin-Levrone continues her athletic career, Andre is studying at a seminary to become a pastor.