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Faster and higher: The reason why athletics records are tumbling around the world
Summary
Is it the ‘super shoes’ phenomenon? Is it the faster tracks? No world athletics record is safe anymore. These are the reasons why
On 28 February, in the small city of Clermont-Ferrand at the foothills of the French Alps, Armand “Mondo" Duplantis stood for a moment, looking askance at the crossbar that rose more than 20ft in the air above him. Then he propelled forward, an unwavering grip on the 15ft pole he held in his hands, his hair flying, legs pumping hard, eyes set with a predator’s focus at the spot where he wanted to land the pole.
And then there he went, jack-knifing and soaring through the air, clearing the crossbar like a diving dolphin, fists pumping even as he fell backwards towards the cushion, his mouth open in a roar matched by the crowds at the stadium. Duplantis had broken his own world record. For the 11th time. The record now stood at 6.27m or 20ft, 7 inches and some.
It’s not just Duplantis—world records in athletics are falling at a remarkable and unprecedented pace. From the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, till now, world records have fallen (in some instances more than once) in the 400m hurdles, half-marathon, 5km (road), 10km (road), 50km (road), 100km (road), 3,000m steeplechase, 2,000m, mile (road), marathon, 3,000m, 20km walk and 35km walk, shot put, discus throw and pole vault in the men’s category. In the same time frame, women broke records in the 10km, half-marathon, triple jump, 100m hurdles, 50km, 35km race walk, Mile, 5000m, 10km, 5km, 4X200m relay, 10,000m, High Jump, 1500m, 2000m, 400m hurdles, and marathon.
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In one crazy week in February this year, six world records in athletics fell in the space of nine days, the most important being Ugandan Jacob Kiplimo, who obliterated the half-marathon record by 48 seconds and became the first person in history to drop the time below 57 minutes.
Some of the reasons for these new frontiers in athletics is well known, none more than the “super shoes" phenomenon.
When Nike revealed their Vaporfly shoes in 2017, a new design that featured US space agency Nasa-designed foams, a stiff carbon-fibre plate in the sole, and an elaborately curved, boat-like shape, “super shoes" became the raging debate of the running world. Some argued that the shoes were akin to performance-enhancing drugs, the athletics world body or World Athletics considered banning them, and arguments flew back and forth about whether they conferred an unfair advantage. Eventually, it came to a decision—a shoe was going to be allowed in competition only if its kind was reasonably available to all competitors. This made sense. While it was once worn only by a select few runners like the marathon legend Eliud Kipchoge, shoes like the Vaporfly have now become the default choice for all runners, even at amateur levels, levelling the playing field but also raising it.
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While the exact science behind why a stiff carbon-fibre plate results in better running efficiency is still not clear, the big mass of soft foam with unmatched spring-like qualities have been proven to return energy to the feet after each strike. These foams are lighter, easier to compress and rebound with far more efficiency than anything ever used in shoes, returning up to 85% of the energy a runner uses to compress them. These shoes have been proven to cut marathon times by approximately ninety seconds for male runners.
The marathon world record now stands at an improbable 2 hours and 35 seconds, closer than ever to the 2-hour barrier that many scientists had theorised was impossible for the human body to breach. The record was set by the late Kenyan runner Kelvin Kiptum in 2023 wearing super shoes.
With this spectacular success in road running, manufacturers brought their focus to the spiked shoes worn by track runners. Using the same ideas—patented foams, stiff carbon plate, and boat shapes—the spikes were rolled out well in time for the Tokyo Olympics, which saw an avalanche of records falling at track events, including Jamaica’s Elaine Thompson-Herah Olympic record in the 100m, breaking a 33-year-old mark, and the total obliteration of the 400m hurdles world records in both men (Karsten Warholm) and women (Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, who has broken her own record multiple times since). In both these events, even the silver medallists ran faster than the previous world record; in the men’s event the bronze medallist broke the previous world mark too.
Adding to the shoes is another technological advancement—the track itself. With each passing year, manufacturers are finding ways of making the tracks faster too—using some of the same tech as in the shoes, for example, a thin layer of highly compressible and elastic foam on top of a layer of stiff material, all precisely structured to allow just the right amount of shock absorption and the maximum possible energy return. At the 2024 Paris Olympics, track manufacturer Mondo claimed that they had made the fastest surface ever, which included mussels and clam shells in its stiff layer, and “elliptical geometric air cells…which significantly enhance the absorption and return of energy…" in its springy top layer.
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“It’s super quick," British 800m sprinter Keely Hodgkinson told reporters after her heat. “ “My legs were turning round and I was trying to slow down."
Former Dutch Olympian turned marathon coach Hugo van den Broek, who runs an elite running centre in Iten, Kenya, says there are other science-based reasons for the enhanced athletic performances we are seeing now.
“It’s because sports science knowledge and access to biometric measurements have become very widespread," Van Den Broek says. “At the elite level, all runners are training in a scientific way. They are constantly getting feedback from their smartwatches and other devices, which are then used to look at what is optimal training for that particular athlete, and what are the things that need to improve."
This kind of bespoke training, and the immense body of scientific research that informs it, has also seen unprecedented democratisation. Once the realm of secretive training centres in ambitious countries with massive budgets for sports, sports science has now seeped down to just about every athlete from every country that’s at the Olympics.
Outside of technology, Van Den Broek says, it’s also important to look at human psychology.
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“Once a record falls, that’s the new mark, and others now think that it’s possible to get there, so they work towards it," Van Den Broek says. “It’s a ripple effect."
It’s a bit like that famous incident attributed to the British runner Roger Bannister: “Apres moi, le deluge", he reportedly said, after becoming the first person to run a mile in under 4 minutes. A French saying that translates to, “after me, the flood", Bannister was talking about how it takes one man to pioneer a new standard, and inevitably, waves of others will follow.
Rudraneil Sengupta is the author of Enter the Dangal, Travels through India’s Wrestling Landscape.
