This was the eleventh time that the women's 400 metres hurdles was contested at the Summer Olympics.

Third in Tokyo behind Dalilah Muhammad #3 of all time, Femke Bol had risen to silver at the 2022 World Championships and in McLaughlin-Levrone's absence won gold in 2023.

Earlier in 2024, Bol ran 50.95 at the record-setting track in La Chaux-de-Fonds, becoming the #2 performer in history.

McLaughlin-Levrone just continued to pull ahead to an insurmountable lead and successfully defended her Olympic title.

Cockrell took the final hurdle smoothly, passing Bol, and surged ahead to run in for silver.

The women's 400 metres hurdles was first introduced at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, United States and was contested ten times at the Summer Olympics before 2024: every four years, although the 2020 edition was postponed to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

[4][5] That year, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone from the United States won the event in a world and Olympic record of 51.46 seconds.