Running Records

Running records are the results of hard work and skill. You can achieve a running record in any number of officially and unofficially recognized events. You can set a track record for running at a local county fair event or at a recognized high school meet. You can set a record for running a marathon, a half marathon or at a world-class event. There are Olympic running records and world running records.

The Olympic records for running can only be established at the Olympic Games. Olympian record holders for the 100 meter are Florence Griffith Joyner at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, Korea and Donovan Bailey of Canada in Atlanta Georgia in 1996. Florence Griffith Joyner also holds the record for the 200-meter run. She won it the same year she placed first in the 100m.

Other Olympic record holders include, in 2000 at Sydney, Australia, Gabriela Szabo of Romania in the 5000m, Derartu Tulu of Ethiopia in the 10,000m and Noah Ngeny of Kenya in the 1500m. The oldest record holders in running date back to 1980 and 1984. Nadezhda Olizareko of Russia won the 800m race in 1:53.43 in Moscow. In 1984, in Los Angeles, Carlos Lopez of Portugal won the marathon in a record-breaking time of 2:09:21.

Between Olympic Games, records are set in world events. Running World Record holders are sometimes set and broke annually. Other running World Records stand for several years untouched. It is the desire of many a runner to break the current World Record in any events, including the World Record for a 1km run.

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Rule 260 of the IAFF regulations governs the categories of World Records. It states there are three categories of World Records. They are World Records, World Junior Records and World Indoor Records. The IAAF recognizes the difference not only between age groups and genders but also between indoor and outdoor track events. There are even disabled events where records can and are broken.

In June 2006, Meseret Defar of Ethiopia broke the 5,000m World Record in New York. Her time was 14:24.53. It was part of the Reebok Grand Prix. Daniel Komen of Kenya holds the World Records for both the 3000 and 5000 meter. He specializes in long distances and does not hold either the 50m run World Record or the 100m running World Record. In 1994, M. Johnson ran the 400m indoor race for a new World Record of 44.63 seconds. Irina Privalova set a 50m indoor record of 6.05 seconds in 1993 and beat her own time in 1995 in 6.03 seconds.

There are World Running Records and alternative World Records. One of the events not recognized by the IAAF or any other athletic body is the Naked World Records.