2015 World Athletics Championships 4x100m Relay (© Getty Images)
World Athletics Championships records
When Hayward Field at the University of Oregon hosts the World Athletics Championships Oregon22 beginning July 15, it will be the first time the World Athletics Championships will be contested on U.S. soil.
And, the 18th edition of the World Athletics Championships will only be the second one held in the Western Hemisphere, joining Edmonton, Alberta, which hosted the 2001 World Athletics Championships.
Expect to see fast times, long throws, and high jumps at Hayward Field from July 15-24. Of the current World Athletics Championships records, each of the past 17 editions is represented on the men’s and women’s lists except for the 1997 Championships in Athens, Greece.
Fans should also plan to see a world record or two fall at Hayward Field. In the previous 17 World Championships, the only times when no world records were set was 1997 in Athens, Greece, 2001 in Edmonton, Alberta, 2007 in Osaka, Japan, and 2013 in Moscow.
Last summer, two world records fell at the reimagined Hayward Field during the U.S. Olympic Team Trials - Track and Field when Ryan Crouser smashed the men’s shot put record with an incredible 23.37m, and Sydney McLaughlin broke Dalilah Muhammad’s women’s 400m hurdles world record, running 51.90. McLaughlin went on to break her own record at the Olympic Games later that summer. Here’s a look at the World Athletics Championships records, event by event:
WOMEN
100 meters ― Marion Jones, United States, 10.70, 1999. Jones, whose career was later tainted by positive drug tests, won her second straight 100m world title in Seville, Spain, with this Championships record. The previous record of 10.82 was set by Gail Devers of the U.S. in 1993.
200 meters ― Dafne Schippers, Netherlands, 21.63, 2015. Schippers, who won the bronze medal in the heptathlon in the 2013 World Athletics Championships in Moscow, won the first of her back-to-back 200m world titles with this Championships record in Beijing. The previous record of 21.77 was set by Inger Miller of the U.S. in 1999.
400 meters ― Jarmila Kratochilova, Czechoslovakia, 47.99, 1983. At the first World Athletics Championships in Helsinki, Kratochilova set a world record in becoming the first woman to break 48 seconds. Marita Koch of East Germany, who ran 47.60 in 1985 to break Kratochilova’s world record, remains the only other woman to run under 48 seconds.
800 meters ― Jarmila Kratochilova, Czechoslovakia, 1:54.68, 1983. Kratochilova remains the only woman to win the 400 and 800 at same World Athletics Championships. Kratochilova set the still-standing world record of 1:53.28 two weeks before her 400-800 double in Helsinki.
1500 meters ― Sifan Hassan, Netherlands, 3:51.95, 2019. Hassan turned in a historical performance in Doha, Qatar, when she became the first person to the win 1500m and 10,000m at the same World Athletics Championships. Hassan shattered the Championships record of 3:58.52 set by Russia’s Tatyana Tomashova in Paris in 2003.
5000 meters ― Hellen Obiri, Kenya, 14:26.72, 2019. Obiri thrilled the fans in Doha when she repeated as the 5000m champion in spectacular fashion, breaking the previous meet record of 14:26.83 set by Ethiopia’s Almaz Ayana in 2015 in Beijing.
10,000 meters ― Berhane Adere, Ethiopia, 30:04.18, 2003. In Paris, Adere smashed the previous record of 30:24.56 set by another Ethiopian runner, Gete Wami, in 1999. Adere’s victory was the third of five straight wins in this event by four different Ethiopians. Adere’s time was the third-fastest in history at that point.
Marathon ― Paula Radcliffe, Great Britain, 2:20:57, 2005. Radcliffe took almost three minutes off the previous record of 2:23:55 set two years earlier by Kenya’s Catherine Ndereba, who would also win the world title in 2007. Radcliffe’s Championship win came when the World Athletics Championships made their second appearance in Helsinki, the only city to host the event twice.
100m hurdles ― Sally Pearson, Australia, 12.28, 2011. In Daegu, South Korea, Pearson won the first of her two world titles (she also won in 2017 in London) when she broke her own Championships record of 12.36 set in the semifinals. That semifinal time broke the previous Championships record of 12.37 set by three-time champion Gail Devers of the U.S. in 1999.
400m hurdles ― Dalilah Muhammad, United States, 52.16, 2019. At Doha, Muhammad set her second world record of the year and became the third person to set a world record in the event at the World Athletics Championships, joining Great Britain’s Sally Gunnell (52.74, 1993) and Kim Batten (52.61, 1995) of the U.S. Muhammad broke the Championships record of 52.42 set by Melanie Walker of Jamaica in 2009 in Berlin.
3000m steeplechase ― Beatrice Chepkoech, Kenya, 8:57.84, 2019. At Doha, Chepkoech became the first woman to break 9 minutes at the World Athletics Championships, breaking the Championships record of 9:02.58 set by Emma Coburn of the U.S. in 2017 in London.
4x100-meter relay ― Jamaica, 41.07, 2015. At Beijing, Jamaica dusted its Championships record of 41.29 set two years earlier in Moscow. The relay team included Elaine Thompson-Herah, who was second in the 200m in the 2015 Championships, and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, the 2015 winner in the 100m.
4x400-meter relay ― United States, 3:16.71, 1993. In Stuttgart, Germany, the U.S. team of Gwen Torrance, Maicel Malone, Natasha Kaiser-Brown, and Jearl Miles-Clark turned in a time that remains No. 4 on the all-time list. The U.S. squad broke the meet record set in 1991 in Tokyo by Russia by 1.72 seconds.
20km racewalk ― Olimpiada Ivanova, Russia, 1:25:41, 2005. Ivanova won her second world title after also winning in Edmonton in 2001 and set a world record, breaking the old record by 18 seconds. Ivanova also broke the previous Championships record of 1:26:52 set in 2003 by countrywoman Yelena Nikolayeva. Ivanova’s win in Helsinki was the third in a stretch of seven straight victories by Russians in this event.
35km racewalk ― Will be contested for first time at World Athletics Championships Oregon22.
50km racewalk ― Ines Henriques, Portugal, 4:05:56, 2017. This event debuted in London in 2017 and was contested in Doha in 2019, but will not be contested at World Athletics Championships Oregon22. Henriques broke her own world record by more than 2 minutes, and this time remains No. 10 on the all-time list.
High jump ― Stefka Kostadinova, Bulgaria, 2.09m, 1987. At the second World Athletics Championships in Rome, history’s greatest high jumper set the still-standing world record, breaking her own world record by 1 centimetre, and breaking the previous Championships record by 8 centimeters. Kostadinova had an astounding 197 career meets where she cleared 2 metres or better.
Pole vault ― Yelena Isinbayeva, Russia, 5.01m, 2005. Isinbayeva improved her own world record by 1 centimeter and remains the only woman to clear 5m at a World Athletics Championships. Isinbayeva broke the previous Championships record by an astonishing 26 centimetres, and added world titles in 2007 and in 2013 on home soil in Moscow.
Long jump ― Jackie Joyner-Kersee, United States, 7.36m, 1987. Joyner-Kersee won the first of her two World Athletics Championships in this event by breaking the previous record by 9 centimeters. She repeated at Tokyo four years later with a leap of 7.32m and remains the only woman to go over 24 feet at the World Athletics Championships.
Triple jump ― Inessa Kravets, Ukraine, 15.50m, 1995. At Gothenburg, Sweden, Kravets obliterated the previous world record, set at the 1993 World Athletics Championships, by 41 centimeters. Kravets’ world record of 15.50m stood until Venezuela’s Yulimar Rojas broke it at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.
Shot put ― Natalya Lisovskaya, Soviet Union, 21.24m, 1987, and Valerie Adams, New Zealand, 21.24m, 2011. Lisovskaya set the standard for the World Athletics Championships with her winning mark in the second edition of the Championships. Two months before the 1987 World Athletics Championships, Lisovskaya set her still-standing world record of 22.63, and owns the four longest throws in history. Only one other person bettered 21m at the World Athletics Championships until Adams equaled Lisovskaya’s Championships record in winning the third of her four straight titles at Daegu in 2011.
Discus ― Martina Hellman, East Germany, 71.62m, 1987. Hellman gave East Germany its second straight World Athletics Championships title when she won in Rome. No one has come within 60 centimeters of Hellman since then at the Championships, and only two other throws have surpassed 70m since Hellman at a World Athletics Championships.
Hammer ― Anita Wlodarczyk, Poland, 80.85m, 2015. Wlodarczyk set a world record of 77.96m in the 2009 World Athletics Championships, and then improved the Championships record to 80.85m when she won the second of her three world titles in 2015. Wlodarczyk set the current world record of 82.98m in 2016 and has 26 of the 30 longest throws in history. Wlodarczyk and DeAnna Price of the U.S., the 2019 world champion, are the only women who have thrown over 80m.
Javelin ― Olisdeilys Menendez, Cuba, 71.70m, 2005. Menendez set a world record in winning in Helsinki, and her throw remains No. 2 all-time. She held the world record until 2008, and broke her own Championships record of 69.53m set in Edmonton in 2001. Menendez is the only woman who has thrown over 71m with the current implement at a World Athletics Championships.
Heptathlon ― Jackie Joyner-Kersee, United States, 7128 points, 1987. Joyner-Kersee has the top six multi-event scores ever, and this performance checks in at No. 5 on the all-time list, easily breaking the previous Championships record of 6714 from 1983. Joyner-Kersee also won in 1993 in Stuttgart.
MIXED
4x400m relay ― United States, 3:09.34, 2019. The team of Courtney Okolo, Allyson Felix, Michael Cherry, and Wil London set a world record in the event that made its World Athletics Championships debut in Doha.
MEN
100 meters ― Usain Bolt, Jamaica, 9.58, 2009. Bolt dazzled the Berlin crowd by winning the first of his three World Championships in this event when he broke his own world record of 9.69 from the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Bolt also smashed the Championships record of 9.80 set by Maurice Greene of the U.S. in Seville in 1999, and Bolt’s time of 9.58 remains the world record.
200 meters ― Usain Bolt, Jamaica, 19.19, 2009. Bolt won the first of his four straight 200m World Championships in world-record fashion four days after his 100m world record in Berlin. Michael Johnson of the U.S. had held the world record of 19.32 since the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. Bolt easily broke the Championships record of 19.76 set by Tyson Gay of the U.S. in 2007 in Osaka.
400 meters ― Michael Johnson, United States, 43.18, 1999. Johnson won the last of his four consecutive World Athletics Championships in this event when he broke the 43.29 world record compatriot Butch Reynolds had set in 1988. Johnson broke his own Championships record of 43.65 from 1993. Johnson’s world record stood until South Africa’s Wayde van Niekerk ran 43.03 for the gold medal at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics.
800 meters ― Donavan Brazier, United States, 1:42.34, 2019. Brazier became the first U.S. runner to win the event at the World Athletics Championships when he broke the Championships record of 1:43.06 set by Kenya’s Billy Konchella in 1987. Brazier also broke the U.S. record of 1:42.60 that Johnny Gray had held since 1985.
1500 meters ― Hicham El Guerrouj, Morocco, 3:27.65, 1999. El Guerrouj, considered one of the greatest distance runners ever, won the second of his four consecutive world titles with this masterful performance. El Guerrouj has seven of history’s 10-fastest times in the event, and his 3:26.00 world record from 1998 still stands.
5000 meters ― Eliud Kipchoge, Kenya, 12:52.79, 2003. Before he became history’s greatest marathoner, Kipchoge wowed in Paris as he broke the World Athletics Championships record of 12:58.13 set by Morocco’s Salah Hissou in 1999.
10,000 meters ― Kenenisa Bekele, Ethiopia, 26:46.31, 2009. Bekele won the 5000m and 10,000m in Berlin in 2009, and set the Championships record in the longer race. The 2009 win was Bekele’s fourth straight and final victory in the 10,000 at the Championships. Bekele has four of history’s seven-fastest times, and held the world record from 2004 until Uganda’s Joshua Cheptegei broke it in 2020.
Marathon ― Abel Kirui, Kenya, 2:06:54, 2009. Kirui won the first of his back-to-back World Athletics Championships titles and added to the standout distance efforts turned in in Berlin. His time broke the previous Championships record of 2:08:31 by Morrocco’s Jaouad Gharib in 2003.
110m hurdles ― Colin Jackson, Great Britain, 12.91, 1993. Jackson set the world record with his winning performance in Stuttgart. Jackson broke the world record of 12.92 set by Roger Kingdom of the United States in 1989, and broke the Championships record of 13.06 set by three-time champion Greg Foster of the U.S. in 1991. Jackson added a second world title in Seville in 1999.
400m hurdles ― Kevin Young, United States, 47.18, 1993. Young was a year removed from his 46.78 world record in the Barcelona Olympics when he won the World Athletics Championships title easily in Stuttgart, smashing the previous Championships record of 47.50 set by Edwin Moses of the U.S. in 1983. No one has run faster than 47.25 at the World Athletics Championships since Young’s record run.
3000m steeplechase ― Ezekiel Kemboi, Kenya, 8:00.43, 2009. Kemboi won the first of his four consecutive World Athletics Championships titles with this record-breaking performance in Berlin. This performance, which broke the previous Championships record of 8:04.39 set by world-record holder Saif Saaeed Shaheen of Qatar in 2003 in Paris, came three months after Kemboi broke the 8-minute barrier for the first time.
4x100m relay ― Jamaica, 37.04, 2011. The Jamaican team that included Yohan Blake and Usain Bolt broke its own world record of 37.31 set at the 2009 World Athletics Championships. Blake and Bolt helped Jamaica further lower the world record to 36.84 at the 2012 London Olympics.
4x400m relay ― United States, 2:54.29, 1993. The oldest men’s track world record in athletics belongs to the quartet of Andrew Valmon, Quincy Watts, Butch Reynolds, and Michael Johnson, who took almost 1.5 seconds off the previous world record set by the U.S. team at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. The U.S. team broke the World Athletics Championships record by almost 2.5 seconds from the 1991 Great Britain team.
20km racewalk ― Jefferson Perez, Ecuador, 1:17:21, 2003. Perez set a world record that stood for four years with this performance in Paris that was the first of his three straight World Athletics Championships victories. Perez broke the previous Championships record by 2 minutes, 16 seconds, and broke the previous world record by 1 second.
35km racewalk ― Will be contested for first time at World Athletics Championships Oregon22.
50km racewalk ― Yohann Diniz, France, 3:33:12, 2017. Diniz took almost 3 minutes off the previous Championships record and recorded the second-fastest time ever, just off his own world record of 3:32:33 set in 2014. The previous Championships record of 3:36.03 was set by Poland’s Robert Korzeniowski in 2003, and was also a world record at the time. Will not be contested at World Athletics Championships Oregon22.
High jump ― Bohdan Bondarenko, Ukraine, 2.41m, 2013. Bonadernko improved the World Athletics Championships record by 1 centimeter with his win in Moscow, breaking the previous Championships record set by Cuba’s Javier Sotomayor, the world record holder, in 1993.
Pole vault ― Dmitri Markov, Australia, 6.05m, 2001. Markov set the World Athletics Championships record when he cleared this height for his only world title in Edmonton, breaking the previous record of 6.02m set by Russia’s Maksim Tarasov two years earlier.
Long jump ― Mike Powell, United States, 8.95m, 1991. In Tokyo, Powell won an epic long jump dual with Carl Lewis and broke the world record of 8.90m set by Bob Beamon at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. Lewis, who was jumping after Powell in the competition, had a better overall series, setting a Championships record of 8.68m on his opening jump, breaking his own mark of 8.67m from Rome in 1987. Lewis also had wind-aided marks of 8.83 and 8.91 before finishing with legal marks of 8.87m and 8.84m, breaking his PR of 8.78m. Lewis had a 65-meet winning streak in the long jump dating back to 1981. Powell moved into second place when he went 8.54m on his second jump of the competition. He remained in second until uncorking his still-standing world record in the fifth of six rounds. Powell’s previous PR was 8.66m.
Triple jump ― Jonathan Edwards, Great Britain, 18.29m, 1995. Edwards wowed the crowd at Gothenburg, Sweden, when he broke the world record twice with leaps of 18.16m and 18.29m. Edwards, who had set the previous world record of 17.98m three weeks earlier, became the first man to break 18 meters and the first and only man since over 60 feet with his 18.29m mark (60-0¼). The previous Championships record of 17.92m was set by Bulgaria’s Hristo Markov in 1987, the same mark with which Edwards won again in 2001.
Shot put ― Joe Kovacs, United States, 22.91m, 2019. Kovacs won a spirited battle with compatriot Ryan Crouser and New Zealand’s Tom Walsh for his second World Athletics Championships title after also winning in 2015. Kovacs topped Crouser and Walsh by 1 centimeter with Crouser second, and Walsh third. Kovacs easily bested the previous Championships record of 22.23m set by three-time champion Werner Gunthor of Switzerland in 1987.
Discus ― Virgilijus Alekna, Lithuania, 70.17m, 2005. Alekna won the second of his back-to-back titles by becoming the only man in Championships history with a winning mark over 70 metres. Germany’s Lars Reidel, who won five world titles between 1991 and 2001, had the previous Championships record of 69.72m.
Hammer ― Ivan Tikhon, Belarus, 83.63m, 2007. Tikhon won his second World Athletics Championships with this record throw. He broke the Championships record of 83.38m set by Poland’s Szymon Ziółkowski in 2001. Tikhon won the event in 2003 in Paris and again in 2005 but was stripped of the 2005 win because of a doping violation.
Javelin ― Jan Zelezny, Czech Republic, 92.80m, 2001. History’s greatest javelin thrower won world titles in 1993 and 1995, and then added a third one with this performance that broke the previous Championships record of 90.82m set by Finland’s Kimmo Kinnunen in 1991. Zelezny remains the world record-holder with his throw of 98.48m from 1996.
Decathlon ― Ashton Eaton, United States, 9045 points, 2015. Eaton broke his own world record by 6 points to top 9000 points for the second time, the only decathlete to ever do so. Eaton broke the previous Championships record of 8902 points by the Czech Republic’s Tomas Dvorak, who won his third consecutive world title with that score in Edmonton. Eaton held the world record until Kevin Mayer of France scored 9126 in 2018.
By Ashley Conklin
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