How many Olympics medals does Lashinda Demus have? American hurdler’s medal tally explored

American hurdler Lashinda Demus was recently upgraded to the Olympic gold medal in the 400-meter hurdle race at the 2012 London Olympics. After Natalya Antyukh's gold medal was declared invalid following doping allegations, Demus became the first American woman to win a gold medal at the Olympics.

Lashinda Demus has just one Olympic medal. She was initially awarded a silver medal but later on upgraded to gold.

14th IAAF World Athletics Championships Moscow 2013 - Day Three

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Lashinda Demus' Olympic career

Lashinda Demus has competed in two Olympics in her career—first in 2004 and then in 2012. She missed an opportunity to compete in the 2008 Olympics after not being able to qualify in the Olympic trials for the Beijing Games.

2004 Athens Olympics

Demus earned a spot in the American Olympic squad in 2004. She raced at precisely the same time as her colleague Sheena Johnson in the semifinals. Demus finished in the second semi, which was substantially quicker by 0.7 seconds than Brenda Taylor, who qualified in the first. She didn't move to the final with her fifth-place finish.

2008 Beijing Olympics

After giving birth to twins in June 2007, Lashinda missed the Olympics in Beijing in 2008 by one position.

2012 London Olympics

In the women's 400-meter hurdles event at the 2012 Summer Olympics, Lashinda Demus initially finished in second place to Natalya Antyukh.

After a re-test of doping samples in 2019, Antyukh was banned and all of her results from 2013 onwards were declared invalid. However, her Olympic results from 2012 were unaffected.

Olympics Day 13 - Athletics

Later, Antyukh's results were declared invalid from July 15, 2012 to October 20, 2022. When it was announced on December 20, 2022 that Antyukh had lost her 400-meter gold medal and had been stripped of it, Demus became the first American woman to win the 400-meter hurdles gold medal at the Olympics. In 2016 Dalilah Muhammad and Sydney McLaughlin were the winners of the Tokyo games.

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Demus' career other than Olympics

Lashinda Demus earned silver, gold, silver, and bronze medals at the world championships in 2005, 2009, 2011, and 2013.

She won the 2009 US Championships in the 400-meter hurdles with a world-leading 53.78 seconds, earning herself a spot at the 2009 World Championships in Athletics. She put behind her the memories of failing to qualify for the 2008 Summer Olympics. She improved on this in the Herculis competition in July, clocking in at 52.63 seconds. This was the fourth-fastest ever for the event and a meeting record.

At the time, she was the favorite to win the World Championships, but she failed over the final two hurdles and was passed by Jamaica's Melaine Walker, giving Demus a second silver. Demus, however, exacted retribution when she won the gold medal in 52.47, a new American record and the third-fastest time in history, at the 2011 World Championships in Athletics in Daegu, South Korea.

She outperformed Melaine Walker, the defending world and Olympic champion, who came in second. After Demus, Walker, the 2010 European Champion, and 2004 Olympic 400-meter bronze medalist Natalya Antyukh, heavy favorite Kaliese Spencer, who had posted the fastest time in 2011, could only manage to finish fourth.