The Dominican athlete crossed the finish line in 48.64 seconds, setting a meet record and winning the Diamond League title for the fourth time
SANTO DOMINGO. Before becoming an Olympic and world champion and one of the great figures of the 400 meters, Marileidy Paulino was a young woman from Don Gregorio, Nizao, Peravia province, who found in sports an opportunity that over the years would take her to the most important stages of world athletics.
Her story didn't begin in the 400 meters or with an Olympic medal. She started in handball, then volleyball, and later, sprinting. The 100 and 200 meters were her first specialties until her physical attributes and her coach's guidance led her to a distance in which she would ultimately make history.
Today, several years after her first races, Paulino has accumulated Olympic and world titles, Diamond League victories and a 2026 season in which she once again proved that she is among the best runners on the planet.
From Don Gregorio to the tracks
Paulino was born on October 25, 1996, in Don Gregorio, municipality of Nizao, province of Peravia. He grew up with his mother and has been involved in sports since his school years.
Her first foray into sports wasn't with athletics. During her school years, she played handball and volleyball, disciplines in which she began to show the physical attributes that would later distinguish her as a sprinter.
At Alirio Paulino, in her home community, a physical education teacher noticed her potential for speed and jumping tests and began to guide her towards athletics.
The path, however, was not immediate
In 2015, when handball was still among his main sporting activities, he participated in the III National Youth Sports Games, representing Peravia, and won the silver medal in the 100 meters with 12.70 seconds.
That result was one of the first indications that he had found another discipline in which he could excel.
He even recounted how in 2015 he declined to participate in a military athletes' competition because it coincided with his birthday. He couldn't have imagined then that the track would eventually become the main stage of his sporting life.
The transformation begins in 2016
The year 2016 marked the true starting point of his athletic career.
Paulino began training under the direction of Cuban Yaseen Pérez, who quickly identified his potential for speed trials.
In his first competitions he recorded 12.01 seconds in the 100 meters and 24.67 in the 200.Shortly afterwards he lowered his marks to 11.89 and 24.54 seconds.
Progress was accelerated
That same year she won the 100 meters of the National Athletics Championship with 11.96 seconds and began to place herself among the main promises of Dominican female speed.
But Paulino was not yet a 400-meter specialist.
The 100 and 200 meters were the events that dominated his schedule.
His first international steps
The growth shown in national competitions allowed him to quickly make the international leap.
In the 2016 Ibero-American Championship, held in Rio de Janeiro, he was part of the Dominican 4×100 meter relay team that finished fifth with 44.56 seconds.
She later competed in the Barrientos Memorialin Cuba, where she finished fifth in the 100 meters with 11.61 seconds and won silver in the 200 meters with 24.10.
She also participated internationally in Colombia and in the NACAC Under-23 Championshipsin San Salvador, where she finished fifth in the 100 meters and sixth in the 200.
She hadn't yet collected major international titles, but she was beginning to acquire the experience she would need to later compete against the best in the world.
In 2017, the path to 400 meters appeared
In 2017 he began experimenting with a test that would completely change his career: the 400 meters.
During the Military Games, he won silver in the 100 meters and bronze in the 400, with a time of 56.30 seconds. He also won gold in the 4x100 and 4x400 relays.
That year she continued to excel in the 200 meters. She won that event at the Barrientos Memorial in Cuba with a time of 23.77 seconds and took bronze at the Ximena Restrepo Grand Prix in Medellín.
An evolution that was beginning to become evident
Paulino had enough speed to compete in short distances, but she also showed an ability to maintain the pace for longer periods that could make her an exceptional runner in the 400 meters.
2018 and 2019: growing among the best in the Caribbean
At the 2018 Central American and Caribbean Games in Barranquilla, Paulino competed in the 100 and 200 meters.
She finished fourth in both events, but managed to climb onto the podium as a member of the Dominican 4x100 relay team, which won the bronze medal.
A year later he participated in the 2019 Pan American Games in Lima, where he continued to compete mainly in the 100 and 200 meters.
It was during that period that his coach began to see more clearly that his future could be in the 400 meters.
The change was gradual, but it ended up being decisive.
The 400 meters change his career
When he began competing more frequently in the 400 meters, his results grew rapidly.
The combination of speed, endurance, and race management skills began to turn her into a different kind of specialist.
The big leap came in 2021, when he competed in the Tokyo Olympic Games.
There she won the silver medal in the 400 meters and another silver as a member of the 4x400 mixed relay. The individual medal made Paulino the first Dominican woman to win an Olympic medal in athletics.
The young sprinter from Don Gregorio was already established among the best in the world.
From Tokyo to Olympic gold
After Tokyo came a succession of great results.
In 2022 he won the world gold in the 4x400 mixed relay and the individual silver medal in the 400 meters.
In 2023 she achieved one of the great goals of her career by winning the 400 meters world championship in Budapest, confirming herself as the best runner in the event on the world stage.
But the most important title was still missing.
At the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, Paulino won gold in the 400 meters with 48.17 seconds, setting an Olympic record.
The victory made her an Olympic champion and consolidated a career that had begun almost a decade earlier on Dominican tracks.
In 2026 the champion wins again
After reaching the Olympic pinnacle, Paulino faced a new challenge in 2026: maintaining his dominance. And the answer came on the track; the season began with a victory in Moscow, followed by his Diamond League run.
In Doha, on June 19, he won the 400 meters with 48.91 seconds.
Eight days later, in Paris, he produced one of the best races of his season.
With a time of 48.48 seconds, he won again and set the best world record of the year up to that point.
The streak continued in Monaco, where he won with 48.67 seconds, and later in London, with 48.97.
In August he won again in Chorzów, Poland, with 48.87 seconds.
The Dominican thus reached the decisive part of the circuit without knowing defeat in the 400 meters of the Diamond League.
Two gold medals in front of their home crowd in Santo Domingo
But among those international victories there was a competition with a different meaning.
The Santo Domingo 2026 Central American and Caribbean Games led Paulino to run again in front of his home crowd at the Félix Sánchez Olympic Stadium on August 5th. Under heavy rain, he won the 400 meters in 48.94 seconds and set a new Games record.
Cuban Roxana Gomez finished second with 49.99 seconds, while Shafiqua Maloney took the bronze.
Paulino wasn't satisfied with that gold and went for more
He was also part of the Dominican mixed 4x400 relay team that won the gold medal, thus ending his participation in Santo Domingo 2026 with two Central American and Caribbean titles.
The image of the Olympic champion running in the rain in front of the packed stands of the Olympic Stadium became one of the most significant moments of her season.
The fourth diamond
The main objective of the Diamond League season arrived on September 5th in Brussels.
The athlete reached the final after winning the five previous events she had competed in on the circuit.
And he won again.
The Dominican crossed the finish line in 48.64 seconds, setting a meet record and winning the Diamond League title for the fourth time.
The victory allowed him to regain the crown he had lost in 2025 and to lift the trophy he had already won in 2022, 2023 and 2024.
The campaign ended up being perfect on the circuit: six 400-meter races and six victories.
Doha, Paris, Monaco, London, Chorzów and Brussels had the same outcome: Paulino in first place.
The fourth diamond became one of the main achievements of a season in which the Dominican once again imposed her consistency.
Budapest: another title to close out the year
After regaining the Diamond League, Paulino arrived in Budapest to compete in the first World Athletics Ultimate Championship.
The competition brought together several of the top 400-meter specialists, including Salwa Eid Naser, Lieke Klaver, Henriette Jæger and Nickisha Pryce.
In the final, other runners took the lead during the first 200 meters.
Marileydi remained calm
As had happened so many times during his career, he saved his best effort for the second half of the race and began to close the gap until he took the lead.
She crossed the finish line in 49.07 seconds, ahead of Henriette Jæger and Nickisha Pryce. In doing so, she finished 2016 with another international title and extended a season in which victory has become a habit.
From that young woman from Nizao to a global figure
Marileidy Paulino's story has an element that transcends medals. Her career began far from the big stages. She first played handball and volleyball. Then came athletics. Her first races were in the 100 and 200 meters, and her first podium finishes came in national and regional competitions.
The 400 meters came later and ended up changing his sporting destiny. Since then, Paulino went from being a Dominican promise to winning Olympic medals, world championships, Diamond League titles, and records.
In 2026 it demonstrated that evolution once again.
He won in Moscow, Doha, Paris, Monaco, London, Santo Domingo, Chorzów, Brussels and Budapest.
In the Dominican Republic, she won two gold medals at the Central American and Caribbean Games. In Brussels, she reclaimed the Diamond League title. In Budapest, she closed out the season with another championship.
But behind all those triumphs remains the same story: that of a young woman from Don Gregorio who started running without imagining that that track would end up taking her to the top of world athletics.
He no longer runs solely to win a medal
This woman, originally from Nizao, runs as one of the great references in the 400 meters and as an athlete who has made the name of the Dominican Republic a permanent protagonist on the main tracks of the world.
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