The fastest athletes in km/h
Who is the fastest runner in kilometers/hour? Meet the fastest athletes in km/h. If you're a runner, it's best not to compare your times to these records.
Fastest male runners.
1.- The world record for outdoor track running speed belongs to Usain Bolt, who covered the 100 meters in 9.58 seconds. He broke it in August 2009, just five days after celebrating his 23rd birthday. There has never been such a fast athlete. For the rest of humanity, it is an incredible mark, impossible to beat by another mortal today. But to get a clearer idea of the speed at which he runs, we will say that he was going at 37.58 km per hour.
If he could maintain that speed for 42 kilometers, he would take 1 hour, 7 minutes, and 37 seconds to run a Marathon.
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2.- Another distance where speed can suffocate an athlete is the 1,500 meters. In this case, Hicham El Guerrouj ran it in 3 minutes and 26 seconds in 1998, which means he was going at a speed of 26.21 km/h.
3.- The record for the 10,000 meters was broken by Kenenisa Bekele in 2005 with a time of 26 min, 17 seconds and 53 hundredths. So he ran at 22.83 km/h.
4.- If we move to asphalt, one of the most popular events is the Half Marathon. In that distance, the record is held by Ugandan Jacob Kiplimo with a time of 57 minutes and 31 seconds, which is a speed of 22.01 km/h. Lowering the previous record by only one second. It was achieved in Lisbon in November 2021.
5.- Finally, the Marathon record was achieved by Eliud Kipchoge in Berlin, September 2022, with a time of 2 hours, 1 minute, and 9 seconds, so he ran at a speed of 20.91 km/h.
In conclusion, we see that the speed of the 100-meter sprint was almost double that used to achieve the Marathon record. Although in both cases we are talking about absolutely exceptional runners, one runs for only ten seconds and the marathon runner maintains that pace for two hours.
Regarding ages, the first three records were broken at 23, 24, and 22 years old respectively. While in the other two, the athletes were 28 and 30 years old. This confirms the theory that athletes gain speed up to 25 years old. And from then on, they gain endurance to better compete in long-distance races.
Fastest female runners.
Now let's go with the women; the times are a little longer, but for the rest of us mortals, the women who have achieved a record are extremely fast and equally unattainable.
6.- The 100m record was achieved by Florence Griffith in 1988 at 28 years of age. She ran in 10.49 seconds, at a speed of 34.32 km/h. Unfortunately, this athlete passed away in 1998.
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7.- The record for the 1,500m was achieved in 2015 by Genzebe Dibaba in a time of 3 min 50 secs and 7 tenths, so she ran at 23.38 km/h.
8.- The women's 10,000m record was achieved in Hengelo (Netherlands) by Ethiopian athlete Letesenbet Gidey at just 23 years old. She ran in a time of 29 min 1 sec and 3 tenths, so she was going at a speed of 20.83 km/h.
9.- The women's Half Marathon record is from 2021 and was surpassed on the same circuit as the previous record. Achieved in Valencia on October 24, 2021, by Ethiopian runner Letesenbet Gidey in a time of 1 hour, 2 minutes, and 52 seconds. For this, she had to run at 20.46 km/h.
10.- And finally, if you are a woman and want to break the women's Marathon record, you must run at more than 18.83 km/h. This was the speed of Brigid Kosgei, who took 2 hours 14 minutes and 4 seconds to cover the 42 km of the most mythical athletics event. On October 13, 2019, Kosgei broke Paula Radcliffe's record from 2003 at the Chicago Marathon.
IAAF data as of October 2019
