Olympic 800m champion Keely Hodgkinson added yet another achievement to her burgeoning CV on 19th February when she broke the indoor 800m world record. Crossing the line in a time of 1:54.87, Team GB’s Hodgkinson shaved almost a second off the previous best that was set by Slovenia’s Jolanda Ceplak back in March 2002. And now the Leigh Harrier has the outdoor 800m world record in her sights, and that one has stood for even longer. Indeed, the world record 800m time of 1:53.28 was achieved by Czech athlete Jarmila Kratochvílová in July 1983, almost 20 years before Hodgkinson was born.
In this article, we’ll take a look at the rapid progress made by the 23-year-old British middle-distance runner, and we’ll assess whether she’s on course to break the long-standing 800m record in the upcoming outdoor season. We’ll also detail some of the other long-standing world records in athletics, including several from the 1980s, set by athletes whose credentials have certainly been questioned over the decades.
Keely Keen to Reign Supreme
Hodgkinson achieved Olympic glory at Paris 2024 when she won 800m gold ahead of Tsige Duguma of Ethiopia and Mary Moraa of Kenya. She had already set a new British 800m record earlier in the season. Still, after she claimed only a silver at the postponed Tokyo Olympics in 2021, Hodgkinson was desperate to land gold in Paris.
And land it she did as she dominated the final and won in a time of 1:56.72. It was towards the end of 2024 that Hodgkinson first stated she was chasing down Kratochvílová’s 800m world record, and hopes were high for the Brit to at least get close to it in 2025.
Injuries in 2025
Unfortunately, for the athlete and her many fans from Britain and abroad, injuries badly affected Hodgkinson’s 2025 campaign. Although she posted some impressive times in Diamond League events (including her second-best ever), she could manage only a bronze medal at the World Championships in Tokyo, with Kenya’s Lilian Odira taking gold and fellow Brit Georgia Hunter Bell landing silver.
Back in Business
After what appears to have been an injury-free off-season, Hodgkinson has returned to the track for the indoor season in very fine fettle. Her time of 1:54.87 at the Meeting Hauts-de-France Pas-de-Calais in Liévin shows she certainly means business. And given that outdoor tracks tend to allow athletes to set faster times, the chances of Hodgkinson breaking the outdoor 800m record look promising.
Of course, she’s only 23 (until 3rd March, at least), which means she still has a couple of years until she hits her theoretical peak. But Keely will be eager to get the world record sooner rather than later, as she’s seen how injuries can effectively wipe out whole seasons. In other words, she’ll want to strike while the iron’s hot (and not risk the iron malfunctioning!). Assuming she stays free of injury, there will be plenty of opportunities for Hodgkinson to attempt to break the world record in the Diamond League events when they get going in May.
We think the most likely venue for her to break the record, however, will be the London Stadium on 18th July. She set her current personal best of 1:54.61 there in 2024, and the home support could prove pivotal. In addition, the current men’s 800m world record was also set there, back at the London Olympics in 2012, when Kenya’s David Rudisha blasted to gold in an astonishing time of 1:40.91. It’s clearly a fast track for 800m races, and Hodgkinson could take full advantage.
Other Long-Standing World Records in Athletics
Here we’ll list some of the other athletics world records that have stood the test of time, i.e. those set before the turn of the century, starting with the women. We won’t include events that rarely feature at the biggest events (such as the 50m hurdles, or the 4 x 200m relay – although that record is held by Team GB and was set back in 1991 by a team featuring Linford Christie and John Regis).
Women’s World Records
| Athlete(s) | Country* | Event | Time/Distance | Date Set |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jarmila Kratochvílová | Czechoslovakia | 800 m | 1:53.28 | 26 Jul 1983 |
| Marita Koch | East Germany | 400 m | 47.6 | 6 Oct 1985 |
| Natalya Lisovskaya | USSR | Shot put | 22.63 m | 7 Jun 1987 |
| Galina Chistyakova | USSR | Long jump | 7.52 m | 11 Jun 1988 |
| Gabriele Reinsch | East Germany | Discus throw | 76.80 m | 9 Jul 1988 |
| Florence Griffith Joyner | USA | 100 m | 10.49 | 16 Jul 1988 |
| Jackie Joyner-Kersee | USA | Heptathlon | 7291 pts | 24 Sep 1988 |
| Florence Griffith Joyner | USA | 200 m | 21.34 | 29 Sep 1988 |
| Tatyana Ledovskaya Olga Nazarova Mariya Pinigina Olga Bryzgina |
USSR | 4 × 400 m relay | 3:15.17 | 1 Oct 1988 |
Men’s World Records
| Athlete(s) | Country* | Event | Time/Distance | Date Set |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mike Powell | USA | Long jump | 8.95 m | 30 Aug 1991 |
| Javier Sotomayor | Cuba | High jump | 2.45 m | 27 Jul 1993 |
| Andrew Valmon Quincy Watts Butch Reynolds Michael Johnson |
USA | 4 × 400 m relay | 2:54.29 | 22 Aug 1993 |
| Jonathan Edwards | GBR | Triple jump | 18.29 m | 7 Aug 1995 |
| Jan Železný | Czech Republic | Javelin throw | 98.48 m | 25 May 1996 |
| Hicham El Guerrouj | Morocco | 1500 m | 3:26.00 | 14 Jul 1998 |
*We have used the country names that were correct at the time each record was set.
As you can see, there was a real dominance of women athletes from behind the Iron Curtain in the 1980s. It’s interesting (some might say suspicious!) that such dominance has not been maintained in the current era when stringent drug-testing mechanisms are in place. We’ll let you draw your own conclusions on that, though.