Marco Arop is chasing world records after Olympic success

Reigning 800m world champion and Paris 2024 silver medallist Marco Arop will be adding an extra 200m to his specialty race distance at the Boris Hanžeković Memorial meet in Zagreb, Croatia on September 8, in the hopes of making history.

Arop has made it known that he has his eye on the 25-year-old 1000m world record, Kenyan Noah Ngeny’s 2:11.96. The 1000m is not an Olympic event.

Arop is in fine form, clocking a 1:41.20 in the 800m at Paris 2024, finishing a mere one-hundredth of a second behind Emmanuel Wanyoni of Kenya. The result was a 1.65 second personal best for Arop–a significant drop in a middle-distance event. Wanyoni and Arop are inching dangerously close to the men’s 800m world record of 1:40.91, which David Rushida set in 2012. Arop himself believes it is only a matter of time before the record is broken. 

READ: Marco Arop a breath away from gold in closest ever Olympic 800m finish

Rushida’s record has, for many years, seemed one of the hardest records to break in all of track and field. Prior to the 2024 season, 18 of the 20 fastest times were run before 2013, and no athlete had run sub 1:42 since the race at London 2012 where Rushida claimed the record.

This year saw a rebirth of the men’s 800m, with multiple athletes running sub 1:42. Arop himself has done it three times in the last month. The 25-year-old is the fourth-fastest man in the history of the men’s 800m. Only Rushida, Wilson Kipketer, and Wanyoni have run faster than the Canadian.

Following the Games, a rematch between Wanyoni and Arop in Lausanne on August 22 resulted in a 1-2 finish once again, with Wanyoni running 1:41.11, matching Kipketer’s second place on the all-time list. Arop finished with a time of 1:41.72.

Mere days later, at the Silesia Diamond League event on August 25, the results were reversed, with Arop taking the win over Wanyoni, finishing with a time of 1:41.86 to Wanyoni’s 1:43.23.

The Diamond League Final, taking place in Brussels on September 13-14, is the next likely opportunity for athletes to take a shot at the 800m world record.

Arop would like to arrive in Brussels as the newly-minted 1000m world record holder. The Edmontonion owns the second-fastest time in the world in the indoor 1000m. In February 2024, Arop clocked 2:14.74, the closest anyone has run to Ayanleh Souleiman’s 2:14.20 indoor world record set in 2016.