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The women's 400 metres hurdles is an outdoor track event over a distance of 400 metres with ten hurdles at the height of 76.2 cm (30 inches). The world records of this women's event have been recognised by World Athletics (called the International Association of Athletics Federations until 2019) since 1974. Every world record is fully automatically timed and undergoes a ratification process that includes doping control.

The first world record of 56.51 seconds was set by Krystyna Kacperczyk of Poland in 1974. Since then, the world record has been broken twenty-three times: six times in the 1970s, six times in the 1980s, two times in the 1990s, one time in the 2000s, two times in the 2010s, and six times in the 2020s. Each improvement was 0.03 seconds (1985, 2024) to 0.77 seconds (1977) faster than the previous record. Up to the 1980s, eight of thirteen records were set by athletes from the Soviet Union, while since the 1990s, nine of eleven records were set by athletes from the United States. The longest-standing world record of 52.34 seconds was set by Yuliya Pechonkina of Russia in 2003 and stood for almost 16 years until 2019. The current world record of 50.37 seconds was set by Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone of the United States in 2024. McLaughlin-Levrone has set a total of six world records in this event, more than any other athlete.

Progression

World records of the women's 400 metres hurdles

Date	Athlete	Nation	Time in sTooltip Seconds	Location	Ref.
13 July 1974	Krystyna Kacperczyk	Poland	56.51	Augsburg, West Germany
26 June 1977	Tatyana Storozheva	Soviet Union	55.74	Karl-Marx-Stadt, East Germany
13 August 1977	Karin Rossley	East Germany	55.63	Helsinki, Finland
18 August 1978	Krystyna Kacperczyk	Poland	55.44	West Berlin, West Germany
19 August 1978	Tatyana Zelentsova	Soviet Union	55.31	Podolsk, Soviet Union
2 September 1978	Tatyana Zelentsova	Soviet Union	54.89	Prague, Czechoslovakia
27 July 1979	Marina Makeyeva	Soviet Union	54.78	Moscow, Soviet Union
18 May 1980	Karin Rossley	East Germany	54.28	Jena, East Germany
11 June 1983	Anna Ambrazienė	Soviet Union	54.02	Moscow, Soviet Union
22 June 1984	Margarita Ponomaryova	Soviet Union	53.58	Kyiv, Soviet Union
22 September 1985	Sabine Busch	East Germany	53.55	East Berlin, East Germany
30 August 1986	Marina Stepanova	Soviet Union	53.32	Stuttgart, West Germany
17 September 1986	Marina Stepanova	Soviet Union	52.94	Tashkent, Soviet Union
19 August 1993	Sally Gunnell	Great Britain	52.74	Stuttgart, Germany
11 August 1995	Kim Batten	United States	52.61	Gothenburg, Sweden
8 August 2003	Yuliya Pechonkina	Russia	52.34	Tula, Russia
28 July 2019	Dalilah Muhammad	United States	52.20	Des Moines, Iowa, United States
4 October 2019	Dalilah Muhammad	United States	52.16	Doha, Qatar
27 June 2021	Sydney McLaughlin	United States	51.90	Eugene, Oregon, United States
4 August 2021	Sydney McLaughlin	United States	51.46	Tokyo, Japan
25 June 2022	Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone	United States	51.41	Eugene, Oregon, United States
22 July 2022	Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone	United States	50.68	Eugene, Oregon, United States
30 June 2024	Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone	United States	50.65	Eugene, Oregon, United States
8 August 2024	Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone	United States	50.37	Paris, France

Notes

1. Marina Makeyeva was the maiden name of Marina Stepanova.
2. ^ Sydney McLaughlin was the maiden name of Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone.

References

1. "Competition Rules & Technical Rules" (PDF), p. 42, World Athletics, 17 January 2024. Retrieved 30 June 2024.
2. ^ "Progression of IAAF World Records 2015 edition" (PDF), pp. 290–291, International Association of Athletics Federations, 2015. Retrieved 6 July 2024.
3. "Competition Rules & Technical Rules" (PDF), pp. 25–27, 31, World Athletics, 17 January 2024. Retrieved 30 June 2024.
4. "World Record Progression of 400 Metres Hurdles", World Athletics. Retrieved 18 July 2024.
5. "Marina Stepanova", Sporting-heroes.net. Retrieved 18 July 2024.
6. "Ratified: Muhammad’s world 400m hurdles record and Anderson’s world U20 100m hurdles record", World Athletics, 11 September 2019. Retrieved 30 June 2024.
7. "Ratified: Muhammad's world 400m hurdles record, Mahuchikh's world U20 high jump records and Cheptegei's world 10km record", World Athletics, 30 January 2020. Retrieved 30 June 2024.
8. Natasha Dye, "Sydney McLaughlin and Andre Levrone Jr. Are Married! All About Their Romantic Vineyard Wedding", People, 6 May 2022. Retrieved 18 July 2024.
9. "Ratified: world records for Crouser, McLaughlin, Knighton and Kosonen", World Athletics, 11 August 2021. Retrieved 30 June 2024.
10. "Ratified: world records for Rojas, Warholm and McLaughlin in Tokyo", World Athletics, 29 September 2021. Retrieved 30 June 2024.
11. ^ "Ratified: world records for Amusan, Duplantis and McLaughlin", World Athletics, 20 September 2022. Retrieved 30 June 2024.
12. "Ratified: world records for McLaughlin-Levrone, Duplantis, Kipyegon, Chebet, Alekna and Ngetich", World Athletics, 27 July 2024. Retrieved 27 July 2024.
13. "Paris 2024 Olympic Games highlights universality of athletics, the heartbeat of the Olympic movement".World Athletics, 11 August 2024. Retrieved 7 October 2024.

• 400 metres hurdles
• Women's world athletics record progressions