5 longest standing track and field records in 2024 ft. women's 800m, men's hammer throw

By Animesh Pandey

Modified Jul 19, 2024 09:23 GMT

When it comes to track and field records, nothing lasts forever. Even the best world records are broken one day.

However, there are some events in track and field where records stand unbroken for as long as 41 years!

Here are some track and field events where the world record has remained unbroken for at least three decades:

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Five of the longest standing track and field records

#5 Women's shot put (since 1987)

In 1987, Natalya Lisovskaya almost achieved the impossible. She became one of the first female shot putters to throw the shot put beyond 22.5m with a throw of 22.63m at an athletic meet in Moscow.

Natalya Lisovskaya competing at an event [Image Source: Getty]

This was only a year before she won the Olympic gold medal in the same event at the Seoul Olympics in 1988. Even today, nobody has managed to break this record in track and field.

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#4 Men's hammer throw (since 1986)

Yuriy Sedykh is a rare track and field athlete who has not been given as much attention as he deserves. He won two consecutive Olympic gold medals for the erstwhile Soviet Union at Montreal and Moscow in 1976 and 1980, respectively.

Yuriy Sedykh in action [Image Source: Getty]

However, his greatest moment came at the European Championships when he threw the hammer at 86.72m to win the gold medal. This is the longest record in the male category of any track and field event till date.

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#3 Women's 400m (since 1985)

In 1983, Jarmila Kratochvilova set a new world record of 47.99 seconds at an athletic meet in Helsinki. For the first time in the history of track and field, someone had managed to run the 400m in under 48 seconds.

Marita Koch [2nd from Right] in action at Helsinki World Championships 1983 [Image Source: Getty]

However, this record did not last long. Marita Koch, an East German athlete who had won a gold medal and a silver at the Moscow Olympics, soon clocked 47.6 seconds at an athletic event in Canberra in 1985. It's been 39 years since anybody even attempted to come close to this, forget equaling or breaking the record.

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#2 Women's 4x800m relay (since 1984)

Well, this record exists as well. The women's 4x800m relay is an event that has rarely been held at any track and field championship. Nevertheless, the Soviet Union created a seemingly everlasting record of seven minutes and 50.17 seconds at an athletic meet in 1984.

The team was led by Nadezhda [Nadiya] Olizarenko, a decorated athlete who had won the gold medal in the women's 800m at the Moscow Olympics in 1980.

Nadiya [Nadezhda] Olizarenko, one of the members of the 4 x 800 m relay world record team from USSR

She was assisted by athletes such as Lyubov Gurina, Lyudmila Borisova and Irina Podyalovskaya.

Since then, among the current lot of athletes, only a team of Louisiana State University has tried to even reach close to this record. Last year, a team from LSU clocked eight minutes and 20.69 seconds to enter the top 50 fastest timings of this event. At the international level, only Poland has managed to somehow break the eight-minute 15-second barrier, at an athletic event held in 2015.

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#1 Women's 800m (since 1983)

Ever heard of Jarmila Kratochvilova? If not, you've probably missed out on one of the greatest middle distance runners in the history of track and field.

Although she has just one Olympic medal, a silver in the women's 400m from Moscow 1980 to her credit, Jarmila Kratochvilova is much more than that. In 1983 at an athletic meet, she broke the world record in the women's 800m to register a record time of a minute and 53.28 seconds.

Jarmila Kratochvilova in action [Image Source: Getty]

A few weeks later, Kratochvilova also broke the world record in the women's 400m with a timing of 47.99 seconds.

However, while the women's 400m world record was broken within two years by Marita Koch from Germany, the 800m world record is the longest standing track and field record till date, unbroken by anybody. The closest anybody could come to it in modern athletics was Pamela Jelimo from Kenya who had clocked around a minute and 54.01 seconds in 2008 at an athletic meet in Zurich.