Sports
Ten athletics world records that could fall at Paris 2024 Olympics
The 2024 Olympic Games get under way on Friday with Paris staging an audacious opening ceremony on the River Seine to kick off what promises to be a fortnight to remember.
For many, all that matters is converting years of sacrifice and hard work into a gold medal, but there will also be the chance to make history when it comes to breaking world records along the way.
For Great Britain, it marks another Games where the nation’s only world record is put on the line, with Jonathan Edwards’s triple-jump landmark having stood for 29 years.
Here, Telegraph Sport looks at the 10 athletics world records most likely at threat from this year’s crop of athletes and which ones could finally be broken.
Women’s 100m: 10.49sec, Florence Griffth-Joyner (USA), 1988
Most of the women’s sprint records have remained out of reach since the 1980s and, while anyone toppling Flo-Jo’s benchmark at the US Trials in Indianapolis remains a long shot, Sha’Carri Richardson is one of the serious threats. Aged only 22, Richardson’s best is 10.65sec and she will be looking to improve that in Paris and start to threaten the record.
Women’s 400m hurdles: 50.65sec, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone (USA), 2024
The best two women’s one-lap hurdlers in history just so happen to be going up against each other in what should be one of the highlights of the track and field programme. Sydney McLaughlin-Levreon was the first woman under both 52 and 51 seconds but the Netherlands’ Femke Bol has now also dipped under 51 seconds. Such quality competition should make another world record highly likely.
Women’s 1500m: 3min 49.04sec, Faith Kipyegon (Ken), 2024
Three of the five fastest times in history have already been set this year, with Kenya’s Faith Kipyegon a clear favourite to defend her title even under pressure from Gudaf Tsegay, of Ethiopia, and Australia’s Jessica Hull. Laura Muir set a British record to go 13th on the all-time list this month but, such is the wider quality, the Scot will still do well to get a medal.
Women’s 800m: 1min 53.28sec, Jarmila Kratochvilova (Cze), 1983
Another women’s record from the 1980s that has long felt unbeatable but, after going under 1min 55sec for the first time in her career at the London Diamond League, Great Britain’s Keely Hodgkinson has demonstrated that modern runners might finally be capable of bridging the gap. Hodgkinson herself thinks so: “Now, I would say yes. It would take a very special race.”
Men’s 200m 19.19sec, Usain Bolt (Jam), 2009
Usain Bolt’s two world records have been completely out of reach for well over a decade but, in Noah Lyles, athletics does at least have a sprinter now who thinks he can topple them. Lyles’ best chance is the 200m — the event he calls his wife — where he is clear favourite for gold. He has run 19.31sec previously and looks to be in the shape of his life.
Men’s 400m 43.03sec, Wayde van Niekerk (SA), 2016
A distance where, just conceivably, a runner from Great Britain could threaten the world record. Matthew Hudson-Smith has been in sensational form so far this year without ever quite going full throttle. He slowed at the London Diamond League even in running 43.74sec. That put him 12th on the all-time list and, while the world record probably remains a long shot, he is now within sight of it.
Men’s 800m: 1min 40.91sec, David Rudisha (Ken), 2012
The Kenyan seemed to have put the record out of reach for a generation when he dipped under 1min 41sec after running from the front so spectacularly at the London Olympics. There have since been significant advances in shoe technology and there is also an outstanding group this year, with seven runners — including Team GB’s Ben Pattison — running times among the 15 quickest of all time.
Men’s 1500m: 3min 26.00sec, Hicham El Guerrouj (Mor), 1998
One of the longstanding track records in the books and just about the only endurance time to survive the era of super shoes, with their bouncy foam and plated soles. Yet that could finally change this year in what should be one of the best races of the entire Games, with Jakob Ingebrigtsen — who is now fourth on the all-time list — taking on Britain’s world champion Josh Kerr.
Men’s pole vault: 6.24m, Mondo Duplantis (Swe), 2024
Like Sergei Bubka during the 1980s and 1990s, Mondo Duplantis has made this record his own in recent years and increased the height incrementally way, which suggests he knows that no one else can seriously threaten his dominance. He has already set yet another world record this year and don’t be surprised if he goes even higher in Paris.
Men’s triple jump: 18.29m, Jonathan Edwards (GB), 1995
Whisper it quietly but Great Britain could lose its only current track and field world record this year. Edwards took the event into a new era during the 1990s but Spain’s Jordan Alejandro Díaz Fortún took the European title earlier this year with a leap of 18.18m — just 11 centimetres short of Edwards’s historic benchmark.
