How the race they said women couldn't run took centre stage — SkimNews
Get the Sports newsletter
Daily sports — scores, transfers, the storylines from the leagues you actually follow. Free.
- Women's 800m was added to the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics but banned for 32 years after false reports claimed competitors suffered extreme exhaustion — the IOC ruled women were "too frail" for the two-lap distance.
- Ann Brightwell (née Packer) won the 1964 Tokyo Olympics 800m gold in a world-record 2:01.1, becoming the first British woman to win Olympic track gold while working as a schoolteacher and juggling training with her career.
- Christina Boxer-Cahill became the first British woman to break the two-minute 800m barrier, clocking 1:59.05 at the 1979 European Cup final in Turin at age 22.
- Jarmila Kratochvílová's 1983 world record of 1:53.28 still stands 43 years later — the longest-standing women's outdoor track record — though questions linger about Czechoslovakia's state-sponsored doping program at the time, allegations she has denied.
- Keely Hodgkinson (British Olympic 800m champion and indoor world record holder) and Audrey Werro (Swiss European champion) have turned the event into a marquee rivalry, with Werro running just 0.42 seconds shy of the outdoor record at the Zurich Diamond League.
- The women's 800m now features multiple women running under two minutes consistently, with six athletes competing in Friday's Athlos all-female athletics event in London.
Why it matters: Boxer-Cahill told BBC she thinks 2026 will be the 'year of women's 800m running,' with both Hodgkinson and Werro within striking distance of Kratochvílová's mark. If it falls, the event sheds its longest-standing women's outdoor track record — one shadowed for decades by questions over her Czechoslovakian program's doping regime.
Ask SkimNews
