Women's 100 metres hurdles world record progression
The women's 100 metres hurdles is an outdoor race with 10 hurdles at a height of 83.8 cm (33 inches). It replaced the older 80 metres hurdles. World Athletics has recognised world records for this event since 1969, with wind checks and doping tests as part of the ratification process.
In the early years, times were hand-timed to the tenth of a second, and some races were also auto-timed to the hundredth. Between 1975 and 1977, fully automatic timing records were accepted, but no new world records were set then. From 1977, automatic timing was required for all races, which sometimes led to the official world record time being adjusted to reflect the new timing standard.
Twenty-three world records have been recognised for this event, with four equal to the then-current record. Most records came from East Germany, with others from Poland, Bulgaria, and a few other nations.
The first hand-timed world record was 13.3 seconds by Karin Balzer of East Germany in 1969; she went on to set six world records in the event. The last hand-timed record was 12.3 seconds by Annelie Ehrhardt of East Germany in 1973.
The first recognised fully automatic record was 12.59 seconds, set by Ehrhardt in 1972 (recognised in 1977). The longest-standing record is 12.21 seconds, set by Yordanka Donkova of Bulgaria in 1988 and held for almost 28 years until 2016.
The current world record is 12.12 seconds, set by Tobi Amusan of Nigeria in 2022.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 05:18 (CET).