Has anyone ever had their WR outlive them?

Mike Powell's will, as will Sotomayor's.

Maybe even Jonathan Edwards's.

Almost certainly women's shot put and discus will outlive the athletes (who are around 60 now). A certain chance for women's hepathlon, LJ and HJ as well. Although I thought Lasitskene could get the HJ and Machuchikh has still many years to try. And a woman like Rojas or Mihambo could get the LJ with a freakishly luck jump like Powell's was.

I also expected Vetter to get zelezny's javelin WR but I doubt this now. Still, that several rather different thrower types could throw comfortably over 90m in the last 6-7 years shows that this is not out of reach. And Zelezny is only 56, so will hopefully live on some time.

"freakishly luck jump"

Hardly. MP holds the longest WA jump and a bunch of other long WA marks.

You do not understand the event.

Maybe work on your English before you diss the great Mike Powell.

George Mallory and Sandy Irvine

I did not "diss anyone". And your claim is wrong. Powell has 4-5 jumps in the top 50 of all time (roughly > 8.60), Myricks and Pedroso have about as many, Lewis had many more. With the argument that Powell jumped in the 8,60s once in a while, you'd have to expect Echevarria or Manyonga to likely break the record eventually.

But you are also missing the point. Which was that 8.90 is about as far from the 8,60s jumped with some frequency by Powell and these other athletes as 7.52 from the 7,30 by Reese and Mihambo. So a woman could get a perfect jump and beat the WR although it is not very likely (as the 7.30 seems already a bit of a lucky jump although in 2019 I though Mihambo would keep to get 7,20s at least regularly) .

We including age group world records? I'm sure there's a lot of those.

Wanjiru never set a maraton WR.

Not missing any point, not that you are making one.

Powell's jump was clearly flukey and freakish.

However, it was not "freakishly luck," whatever that is.

(You do not seem to understand the difference between luck and lucky.)

Did he get a huge gust of wind, undetected by the gauge or officials? No.

Was it at altitude? No.

Did the officials eff up and forget how to use a tape or not see a foul? No.

Were it the HJ or PV and he clocked the bar and it stayed on, then you might have a point.

It was not luck.

It was Mike Powell.

Powell’s luck was that the track was illegally hard. Beamon had double luck of wind and altitude aid.

We will never know for sure, but from available evidence it seems unlikely they surpassed Norton’s high point. Coming back alive also counts for half of it.

No, but he did set the half marathon world record multiple times.

And you know this how?

Lewis had the same "luck" and he lucked out.

I read somewhere that King Carl then went out that night and pulled an almighty royal train.

Unschmaltzed!

Agnes Tirop set the women only 10k road record in Berlin exactly one month before she was murdered.

Richard Chelimo's 10,000 WR was also a Jr WR. His WR only lasted 5 days, but he didn't outlive his Jr WR.

You're right. Ed Whitlock alone hold many age group world records still, although a few have been broken.

Follow-up question: did any of the world record holders die thinking that their record will never be beaten?

ChatGPT’s answer when it finally understood the question.

“By “outlived” I mean the world record stood unbroken even after the record holder’s death.

I apologize for the confusion. Here are a few world records in track and field that have stood unbroken after the death of the record holder:

Men's 1 mile run - 3 minutes, 49.4 seconds, set by Roger Bannister in 1954

Women's 100m dash - 10.49 seconds, set by Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988

Women's 200m dash - 21.34 seconds, set by Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988

These records have stood for several decades and continue to be milestones in the history of track and field.”

Bannister ran 3:49.4 and still holds the record? Well, that's certainly something.

That’s not what it said.