Why the women's 800m world record has resisted 43 years of challenges

At the European Athletics Championships in Birmingham this week, Britain’s Keely Hodgkinson is among the competitors chasing a women's 800m world record that has stood since Jarmila Kratochvilova ran 1:53.28 in 1983. The record has not been bettered in 43 years, and several current leading athletes are producing times that bring them closer than at any point in recent decades.

Kratochvilova's 1:53.28, set in 1983, remains the official benchmark and has been the subject of suspicion because of the systematic doping programmes in some countries at that time; Kratochvilova has strenuously denied that her performance in Munich was aided by such a regime. The era also produced Marita Koch's 400m world record in 1985 while East Germany's sports system was later found to have been systematically doping athletes; Koch never failed a drugs test and has denied wrongdoing. In 2017 European Athletics proposed voiding records set before 2005, a measure that did not proceed but underlined questions about pre-2005 marks; World Athletics (formerly IAAF) began storing blood and urine samples from 2005.

Kratochvilova was 32 when she won in Munich, crossing the line more than seven seconds ahead of Poland's Jolanta Januchta, and no competitor came within a second of that time for 25 years afterwards. The nearest approach this season came from Switzerland's Audrey Werro, who ran 1:53.80 in June and has gone under 1:54 twice this year. Hodgkinson herself holds the sixth-fastest outdoor 800m time in history and earlier this year set the indoor world best at 1:54.87 in February, a mark that had stood since 2002.

Other recent performances have pushed the event forward: the Netherlands' Femke Broeders-Bol, having switched from 400m hurdles and with limited 800m experience, ran 1:55.60 at the Paris Diamond League in June. Those results, and Werro's sub-1:54 efforts, illustrate how a small group of athletes is producing times that close the gap on the long-standing record.

Commenting on the scale of Kratochvilova's mark, Jenny Meadows said: "Believe you me, that time of 1:53.28 is astonishing." Jessica Ennis-Hill added: "They're all dragging each other to these incredible times. The level of the 800m has risen significantly in the past two years."

University of Exeter professor Andrew Jones pointed to scientific and technological gains, saying: "Everyone is going faster than they used to be because the shoe technology is so much better." He also noted: "We know more about various supplements, things like creatine, nitrate, but in particular bicarbonate. "And we know more about what limits performance" and used a fueling analogy: "It's a bit like a Formula One race car," he added. "You want the car to cross the line almost empty of fuel. If you've got half a tank left, you've been weighing yourself down."

In Birmingham the leading trio of 800m runners are expected to attempt to reach a competitive final, but they must first progress through Thursday's semi-finals; whether the championship decider will become a tactical contest or a straight speed battle remains to be seen. Hodgkinson said: "All it takes is one person to raise the bar and you think more things are possible," adding, "Everyone knows that to keep up you have to keep getting better. It's a really exciting time for the women's 800m."