The one hour run is an

athletics Athletics may refer to: Sports * Sport of athletics, a collection of sporting events that involve competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking ** Track and field, a sub-category of the above sport * Athletics (physical culture), competi ...

event in which competitors try to cover as much distance as possible within one hour. While officially recognized by

World Athletics World Athletics, formerly known as the International Amateur Athletic Federation (from 1912 to 2001) and International Association of Athletics Federations (from 2001 to 2019, both abbreviated as the IAAF) is the international governing body fo ...

as a track event, it is rarely contested apart from occasional world record attempts. The event has a long history, with first recorded races dating back to the late 17th century. The first athlete to run more than 20 kilometers in one hour was

Emil Zátopek Emil Zátopek (; 19 September 1922 – 21 November 2000) was a Czech long-distance runner best known for winning three gold medals at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki. He won gold in the 5,000 metres and 10,000 metres runs, but his final me ...

, in September 1951. Zátopek also set the 20,000 meters world record in the same race. Since that time, most men's 20,000 m world records were also set ''en route'' to one hour world records. The men's world record is , set by

Mo Farah Sir Mohamed Muktar Jama Farah (born Hussein Abdi Kahin; 23 March 1983) is a British long-distance runner. His ten global championship gold medals (four Olympic and six World titles) make him the most successful male track distance runner ever ...

on 4 September 2020, while the women's world record is , set by

Sifan Hassan Sifan Hassan ( om, Siifan Hassan; born 1 January 1993) is an Ethiopian-born Dutch middle- and long-distance runner. She completed an unprecedented triple at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics winning gold medals in both the 5000 metres and 10,000 metres, ...

on the same day.

Men's world record progression

Women's world record progression

All-time top 25

Men

*Updated September 2022.

Women

*Updated September 2020. *Mx = Mixed gender race

References

External links

IAAF list of one-hour records in XML
Events in track and field Long-distance running {{Athletics-stub