On Monday, we wrote about how a few hours of research determined that Natalie Dumas is the only U.S. athlete ever to run as fast as she has in the 400, 800 and 400-meter hurdles.
You can read that piece here.
But it kept nagging at me wondering how many athletes world-wide have run 51.14 in the 400, 2:00.11 in the 800 and 55.99 in the 400-meter hurdles in their life. The research required to find that was daunting, but you know how I am when it comes to track. If there’s a way to figure it out, I’ll figure it out! Once I get started on a track research project, I can’t stop.
So armed with the fantastic World Athletics database, I got to work.
In world history, 468 women have run 55.99 or faster in the 400-meter hurdles. So I went through every one, clicked on their World Athletics profile, then clicked on the “statistics” tab, then clicked on the “personal bests” tab and looked for their 800 PR. Most didn’t have one. The ones who had one at 2:00.11 or faster I looked next for their flat 400 PR.
Then I repeated that for the 467 women other than Dumas who have run 55.99 or faster. Actually, I only had to check 358 women because we had already established that no American had done it. So I only had to look up the 358 non-Americans.
The verdict? By now you’ve probably guessed it.
Natalie Dumas is the only woman in the history of the planet Earth to run 51.14, 2:00.11 and 55.99.
A 16-year-old girl from Voorhees who just finished her junior year at Eastern High achieved something over a 48-hour span from early Friday afternoon through early Sunday afternoon that no other female has ever achieved.
And along the way in her spare time she ran a 2:03.90 anchor and teamed up with Johnna Gonter, Jasmine Davies and Samantha Osei-Kyei to place 2nd to Rumson-Fair Haven in the sprint medley in 3:53.15 – 12th-fastest in U.S. history!
How long did it take to look this up? You don’t want to know! But it was worth it to provide context to Dumas’s unprecedented achievement at West Philly Nationals at Franklin Field!
I did find a handful of women who have come close to Dumas’s times in all three events. Several ran faster than Dumas in two events but none ran as fast in all three.
And it makes sense. Because not only are most elite athletes incapable of running that fast in three disparate events, they don’t have a reason to even try. If you’re an elite 400 runner, you’re going to get your paycheck by running fast 400s. There’s rarely a reason to run an off event at the highest level, much less two of them. Obviously, you’ll see a lot of 100-200 doubles and occasional 200-400 doubles or maybe 800-1500 doubles at the highest level. But the 400, 800 and intermediates, while using overlapping physiological systems, are very different events that require different types of training. And to excel at the highest level in all three is impossible.
Or was impossible until this weekend!
So let’s take a look at some of the women who’ve come close to achieving in their entire track careers what Dumas did in 48 hours.
✅ Cristina Matei, Romania: Matei ran 54.55 in Moscow in 1986 and 1:59.06 in Bucharest in 1985, but her best 400 was “only” a 52.93 in Budapest, Hungary in 1984.
✅ Ester Goossens, the Netherlands: Goossens ran 54.62 in the intermediates in 1998 – also in Budapest, curiously – and set the Netherlands 800 record of 2:00.01 in Stockholm in 2001. But her best 400 was a 51.35 in Malmö, Sweden, also in 1998.
✅ Selena Goncharova, Russia: Goncharova had a hurdles PR of 54.94 from Sochi, Russia, in 1986, and an 800 PR of 2:00.13 from Voronezh, Russia, in 1992 – slightly slower than Dumis’s – and PR’d at 51.73 in the 400 in Moscow in 1987.
✅ Krystyna Kacperczyk, Poland: Kacperczyk [pronounced Kah-SPAIR-chick] ran 55.44 in the intermediates in Berlin in 1978, 1:59.78 in London in 1978 and 51.78 in the 400 in Brescia, Italy, also in 1978.
✅ Tamara Kupriyanovich, Belarus: Kupriyanovich ran 55.75 in Leningrad in 1989, 2:00.63 in Moscow in 1993 and 52.20 in Šiauliai, Lithuania, in 1988 (with a hand-timed 51.8 in Staiki, Belarus, in 1988.
✅ Britton Wilson, U.S.: Wilson is the closest American to Dumas, with a 49.13 in Baton Rouge in 2023 and a speedy 53.08 400 hurdles at Hayward Field in 2022 – that’s No. 12 all-time U.S. – but with an 800 PR of 2:02.13, which she ran twice, both times indoors at the Tyson Center in Fayetteville, Ark. Wilson owns one of the greatest middle-distance doubles ever by an American with that 49.13 and a 53.28 about an hour later at the 2023 SEC Championships in Baton Rouge. Wilson is the only runner in this group who’s still active – she ran 51.37 last week in Winter Garden, Fla. – but she hasn’t run an 800 since she was in college at Arkansas in 2023.
The Natalie Dumas story is already one of the most remarkable stories in track and field history and it’s just getting started!
From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank 