# Women's 400 metres hurdles world record progression

The women's 400 metres hurdles is an outdoor track event over a distance of 400 metres with ten hurdles at the height of 76.2 cm (30 inches). The world records of this women's event have been recognised by World Athletics (called the International Association of Athletics Federations until 2019) since 1974. Every world record is fully automatically timed and undergoes a ratification process that includes doping control.
The first world record of 56.51 seconds was set by Krystyna Kacperczyk of Poland in 1974. Since then, the world record has been broken twenty-three times: six times in the 1970s, six times in the 1980s, two times in the 1990s, one time in the 2000s, two times in the 2010s, and six times in the 2020s. Each improvement was 0.03 seconds (1985, 2024) to 0.77 seconds (1977) faster than the previous record. Up to the 1980s, eight of thirteen records were set by athletes from the Soviet Union, while since the 1990s, nine of eleven records were set by athletes from the United States. The longest-standing world record of 52.34 seconds was set by Yuliya Pechonkina of Russia in 2003 and stood for almost 16 years until 2019. The current world record of 50.37 seconds was set by Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone of the United States in 2024. McLaughlin-Levrone has set a total of six world records in this event, more than any other athlete.

## Progression

* Ratified
* Not ratified
* Ratified but later rescinded
* Pending ratification
World records of the women's 400 metres hurdles :
| Date | Athlete | Nation | Time in sTooltip Seconds | Location |
| 13 July 1974 | Krystyna Kacperczyk | Poland | 56.51 | Augsburg, West Germany |
| 26 June 1977 | Tatyana Storozheva | Soviet Union | 55.74 | Karl-Marx-Stadt, East Germany |
| 13 August 1977 | Karin Rossley | East Germany | 55.63 | Helsinki, Finland |
| 18 August 1978 | Krystyna Kacperczyk | Poland | 55.44 | West Berlin, West Germany |
| 19 August 1978 | Tatyana Zelentsova | Soviet Union | 55.31 | Podolsk, Soviet Union |
| 2 September 1978 | Tatyana Zelentsova | Soviet Union | 54.89 | Prague, Czechoslovakia |
| 27 July 1979 | Marina Makeyeva | Soviet Union | 54.78 | Moscow, Soviet Union |
| 18 May 1980 | Karin Rossley | East Germany | 54.28 | Jena, East Germany |
| 11 June 1983 | Anna Ambrazienė | Soviet Union | 54.02 | Moscow, Soviet Union |
| 22 June 1984 | Margarita Ponomaryova | Soviet Union | 53.58 | Kyiv, Soviet Union |
| 22 September 1985 | Sabine Busch | East Germany | 53.55 | East Berlin, East Germany |
| 30 August 1986 | Marina Stepanova | Soviet Union | 53.32 | Stuttgart, West Germany |
| 17 September 1986 | Marina Stepanova | Soviet Union | 52.94 | Tashkent, Soviet Union |
| 19 August 1993 | Sally Gunnell | Great Britain | 52.74 | Stuttgart, Germany |
| 11 August 1995 | Kim Batten | United States | 52.61 | Gothenburg, Sweden |
| 8 August 2003 | Yuliya Pechonkina | Russia | 52.34 | Tula, Russia |
| 28 July 2019 | Dalilah Muhammad | United States | 52.20 | Des Moines, Iowa, United States |
| 4 October 2019 | Dalilah Muhammad | United States | 52.16 | Doha, Qatar |
| 27 June 2021 | Sydney McLaughlin | United States | 51.90 | Eugene, Oregon, United States |
| 4 August 2021 | Sydney McLaughlin | United States | 51.46 | Tokyo, Japan |
| 25 June 2022 | Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone | United States | 51.41 | Eugene, Oregon, United States |
| 22 July 2022 | Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone | United States | 50.68 | Eugene, Oregon, United States |
| 30 June 2024 | Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone | United States | 50.65 | Eugene, Oregon, United States |
| 8 August 2024 | Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone | United States | 50.37 | Paris, France |