Inside “Project 99”: Why the 800m Is Faster Than Ever and the Race for the First Sub-1:40

One day after he was eliminated from the 800 meters at the 2021 Olympics, Marco Arop met his coach Chris Woods for lunch in the Olympic Village. The Canadian had come to Tokyo as a medal contender, but in his first Olympics, the magnitude of the moment had gotten the best of Arop, then 22. After leading his semifinal coming off the final turn, he faded badly down the home stretch and finished 7th. Woods was still thinking about it as he made his way to the village.

“I didn’t sleep the night before, tears are still in my eyes,” Woods said. “We’re devastated.”

As they sat down to eat, Woods and Arop discussed the race and the mistakes they had made. To that point, Arop had been known exclusively as a front-runner. For better or worse, if he was in a race, you knew Arop would be at the front at halfway. They decided that needed to change. Immediately.

That didn’t mean Arop would stop leading races entirely. But Woods did not want it to be his only option.

“It’s like an MMA fighter,” Woods said. “You’ve gotta be able to box, you’ve gotta be able to wrestle, you’ve gotta be able to do leg kicks.”

The adjustment paid immediate dividends. In Arop’s next race at the Prefontaine Classic, he went out in last place through 400 meters before passing the entire field to win. Two years later, he replicated the last-to-first strategy to win the world title in Budapest.

Before they left the dining hall in Tokyo, Woods, who has coached Arop since his arrival at Mississippi State University in 2018, told Arop one more thing.

“I said, ‘Look man, if you decide to stick it out with me, I promise you I’ll do everything in my power to see to it that we break the world record and run under 1:40,’” Woods said.

Looking back three years later, Woods points to that day as the birth of what he and Arop would come to refer to as Project 99 – “because we’re trying to run 99 seconds in the 800.”

***

The Year of the 800

The final outcome of Project 99 is yet to be determined, but when it comes to David Rudisha’s 1:40.91 world record from 2012, it is no longer a question of if it falls, but when and who. Arop has run 1:41 three times this year, including his personal best of 1:41.20 in the Olympic final in Paris. But that was only good enough for silver behind Kenya’s Emmanuel Wanyonyi, whose 1:41.19 at the Olympics was one of four 1:41s he has run in 2024, setting a record for most in a single year. Wanyonyi’s 1:41.11 at the Athletissima Lausanne meeting on August 22 was the fastest anyone has run since Rudisha and moved him into a tie with Wilson Kipketer for #2 on the all-time list.

One of the most famous 800m races in history came late on the night of June 10, 1981, when Sebastian Coe smashed his own world record by running 1:41.73 in Florence. Coe’s world record stood for 16 years, and as recently as June of this year, only two men had ever run faster than Coe; now 1:41.73 would only rank #6 in the world for 2024.

The sub-1:42 club has doubled in the last three months, from five members to 10. The newest member, Bryce Hoppel ran an American record of 1:41.67 at the Olympics, a time that would have earned at least a silver in every previous Worlds/Olympics but did not even place him on the podium in Paris. Of the 20 fastest performances in history, more than half have been run in 2024.

Quite simply, the event has gone mad. We are living in the Year of the 800.

All-time men’s 800m list

Table courtesy World Athletics

This article is the first time Woods has publicly discussed Project 99. Had he done so earlier, he may have been ridiculed — as recently as last summer, the men’s 800 meters was one of the weakest events in all of track & field, and had been for some time. From October 2019 to September 2023, only one man broke 1:43 – Botswana’s Nijel Amos, who ran 1:42.91 in Monaco in July 2021 and was handed a three-year doping ban less than a year later. In 2022, Emmanuel Korir’s 1:43.26 was the slowest world-leading time since 2007.

2023 was almost as slow, with Wanyonyi’s 1:43.20 lasting as the world leader until the final meet of the year at the Pre Classic. In that race, Wanyonyi (1:42.80) and Arop (1:42.85) both broke 1:43 for the first time in their careers. It offered a hint that 2024 would be faster – but there was nothing to suggest it would be this fast. 

Slowest world-leading times, 2008-23

The event had slowed down in the United States, as well. In 2022, only two Americans broke 1:45 all year, and Bryce Hoppel’s 1:44.60 was the slowest US leader since 2005.

That was just two years ago.

In 2024, five Americans ran faster than 1:44.60 in the semifinals of the US Olympic Trials. Four Americans have broken 1:44 this year (tied for the most ever in a single year with 1984), and 12 have broken 1:45 (nearly doubling the previous record of seven from 2021).

All of this raises a natural question: what the hell is going on?

It’s tempting to channel our inner Mars Blackmon and scream out, “It’s gotta be the shoes!” But super spikes have been available to professional 800-meter runners since 2019. If the shoes make such a great impact, why were the fastest 800 guys running so slowly in 2022 and 2023?

LetsRun.com spoke to a number of event’s fastest athletes and their coaches to try to understand the origins of the Year of the 800. One of the first things we found? It’s not just that times are faster; it’s how those times are being run.

***

You don’t have to go out in sub-50 to break 1:42 anymore

Until 2024, there were 15 instances of a man running 800 meters in under 1:42. All shared one commonality: the first lap was run in under 50 seconds.

Rudisha and Kipketer, who combined for 11 of those 15 sub-1:42s, took the same approach to racing during their fastest races. Both went out incredibly quickly for the first lap and spent the second lap hanging on for dear life. Both Rudisha (49.28/51.63) and Kipketer (49.3/51.8) ran positive splits of around 2.5 seconds during their PR races.

The top runners of 2024 approach the event differently. Of the 12 sub-1:42s run this year, six have featured a first lap of 50 seconds or slower. Four of those six came in the Olympic final, where Arop (51.1/50.1 for 1:41.20) and Djamel Sedjati (51.0-50.5 for 1:41.50) ran the fastest negative-split 800s in history. 

That race showed just how far the event has come. In the last Olympic final in Tokyo, Emmanuel Korir went out in 54.0 and came back in 51.06 for his second lap to win gold. In Paris, gold medalist Wanyonyi went out way faster (50.3) yet still closed harder than Korir (50.89).

On average, the 15 sub-1:42s run prior to this year featured a first lap of 49.28 seconds and a second lap of 52.09. The 12 sub-1:42s in 2024 featured an average first lap of 50.09 and an average second lap of 51.43.

The trend is illustrated by the table below, which lists the 11 times in history a man has run 1:41.50 or faster. The six times prior to this year all had a first lap of 49.3 or faster whereas none of the times this year featured a first lap faster than 50.0.

Sources: SpeedEndurance.com, Track & Field News

Woods believes Arop will run his fastest race by running as close to even splits as possible.

“I think momentum coming home is more important than being 49.5 at 400,” Woods said. “I’d much rather know that you can close in 12.5/12.6 because I think that’s what it’s going to have to take. You’re not going to back your way into the world record.”

We’re still seeing sub-50 first laps – Arop went out in 49.6 to run 1:41.72 in Lausanne, and 49.7 to run 1:41.86 in Silesia – but it’s no longer the only way to run fast.

Few have spent more time analyzing 800m pacing strategies than Gareth Sandford, a sports science consultant who wrote his doctoral thesis on elite 800m running. When it comes to ideal splits for running the fastest possible 800, Sandford believes it depends on each individual athlete’s skillset, though in almost all cases, a positive split is going to be faster.

Sandford notes that the second 100 is usually the fastest of the race as athletes are fresh and trying to put themselves in good position before the turn at the 200m mark. But runners must be careful in that segment; running that fast taxes the body’s anaerobic energy reserves, which can come back to bite them at the end of a race. 

Sandford said that the current crop of 800 stars may have benefited from backing off a bit during the second 100, which in turn allows them to close harder at the end of races.

“The Rudisha era a lot of the time was running that more aggressive first 200 and in particular that second 100 of the race,” Sandford said. “Whereas now, that second 100 is still the fastest sector, but it’s not been as aggressive.”

Given the many of today’s fastest 800 runners are strong closers, Sandford does not believe they need to go through 400 in 48-high or 49-low like Rudisha and Kipketer in order to get the record.

“Get that first 200 right, get everyone in position, get to 400 around 50.0 and bring it home,” Sandford said. “I wouldn’t want to go much below probably 49.8, but I still think that’s rich for a lot of these guys. You’ve seen the finishes of some of these guys – Sedjati, Wanyonyi, they’ve got it in the home straight. Wanyonyi [at the Olympics] ran 50.3 [for his first 400]. So if he ran 50.0 [instead], that’s the record. So that’s all we need to do – easier said than done.”

The Olympic bump

“Every Olympic year, you’re going to see people start getting faster across the board,” said University of Kansas coach Michael Whittlesey, who coaches Hoppel.

In theory, a runner should not run faster simply because the year in question is divisible by four. Yet in each of the last four Olympic cycles, the #1 and #10 times were faster in Olympic years than both the year that preceded the Olympics and the year that followed it (pending 2025’s results). It does not fully explain the massive jump in 2024, but Olympic years are when motivation is the highest and often represent the culmination of long-term training plans.

The Olympic “bump,” 2011-2024

Is it the shoes?

USOPC physiologist Geoff Burns has studied the effects of super shoes and super spikes in running extensively in his role as adjunct assistant professor of kinesiology at the University of Michigan. In July, he published a study that found that super spikes improve running economy by 2% compared to older models. That was based on athletes running at 6:00/mile pace, but Burns told LetsRun.com he “definitely” believes the spikes benefit 800m runners as well.

“The degree that the spikes improve running economy in an 800 runner is an interesting question because of how they’re going about achieving that speed in a mechanical sense,” Burns said. “Most of them are running, essentially, like a sprinter. They’re up on their toes running very fast with very short ground contact times.”

That’s important, because one of the things that makes super spikes “super” is the way in which the foam returns more energy with each footstrike. Burns said that could explain why the spikes benefit athletes in longer distances – who tend to land more toward their heel or midfoot – more than the 800.

“You’re compressing much less of that beneficial foam if you’re up on your toes,” Burns said. “There is more possibility to take advantage of more of that foam for the entirety of the footstrike [if you land further back on the foot].”

Still, Burns believes the spikes have played a role in the explosion of fast times this year, even if they are only one factor among several. But if super spikes help in the 800, why were times so slow in 2022 and 2023?

Burns said that what is currently happening in the 800 could be a toned-down version of what speed skating experienced when clap skates were introduced in the 1990s.

“You wouldn’t put [the clap skates] on and immediately start skating faster,” Burns said. “But if you trained for a while, you would change your skating technique to take advantage of that greater range of motion that the clap skate allowed…After this transition period of a few years, all the world records were smashed.”

Burns is confident that something similar has been happening in the 800 and more sprint-oriented events with athletes subtly, perhaps unconsciously, refining their form to take advantage of the new spikes.

“What I’m not sure on is the time course of that,” Burns said. “Is it something that happens over weeks, months, or years?”

Bicarb is taking over

In the last two years, sodium bicarbonate has become very popular among the world’s best middle distance runners, specifically the Maurten Bicarb System, a combination of miniature tablets and a yogurt-like slurry that many athletes take before races. (We did a deep dive on bicarb last year: LRC The Pill That Over Half the Distance Medallists Used at the 2023 Worlds).

The idea behind bicarb is that it acts as a temporary buffer to counter the negative effects of hydrogen ions that build up in the muscle during anaerobic activity. Sandford said that while he is not familiar with the specifics of the Maurten product, sodium bicarbonate could be one of the reasons athletes have been able to close so well this year.

“[Buffering] is prolonging your tolerance to process the acidosis that happens in the beginning of the race,” Sandford said. “That would be the impact of that supplement is you essentially slow the deceleration of the last 100 because you’re better able to tolerate the effects that you’ve produced in the first half of the race from the explosive first 200.”

Maurten confirmed to LetsRun.com that at least half of the men’s Olympic 800m finalists used its bicarb product in Paris. That includes Wanyonyi, who has used it before races since last year, but not Hoppel, who has had a career year in 2024 without it. Women’s Olympic 800 champ Keely Hodgkinson also uses bicarb.

Arop won the 2023 world title without sodium bicarbonate and had never tried it until last month. But Arop noticed another athlete using it at Team Canada’s pre-Olympic holding camp in Barcelona, and after hearing more about it, Arop was intrigued. He called his agent John Regis to see if he could find some for him to use at the Olympics.

Regis, already in Paris, was at an On Running event when Arop called. And when the subject of bicarb came up, Regis’ colleague Ramon Clay could not help but notice the man across the room wearing a Maurten t-shirt. It turned out to be Ben Vriends, a member of Maurten’s nutrition team. Clay introduced himself, explained Arop’s request, and – presto! – Arop had his bicarb in time for the Games.

Most athletes avoid introducing new variables at such an important meet, but after trying it once at practice that week, Arop felt it was a risk worth taking and used bicarb for the semifinal and final at the Olympics.

“I figured, if everyone else is using it, [I should too],” Arop said.

Arop’s three finals since he began using bicarb have been the three fastest races of his career — 1:41.20 in Paris, 1:41.72 in Lausanne, and 1:41.86 in Silesia — and there is growing evidence that Maurten’s product actually does boost performance. Woods, his coach, still wants to see more data before drawing a definitive cause-and-effect between Arop’s times and his use of bicarb. But at the very least, he believes it helped Arop mentally.

“Marco believed it helped, and he believed it helped going into the race,” Woods said. “So at that point, to me as a coach, that’s all that mattered. But from a physiological standpoint, I can’t tell you how or if it’s working for us yet.”

A new generation of stars

So far, we’ve been looking for “big picture” explanations for why everyone is running faster. But some reasons for improvement are unique to each athlete. Consider Bryce Hoppel. From 2021-23, Hoppel consistently ran in the 1:44s but struggled to go much faster. Seeking a new stimulus, Hoppel began training at altitude in 2024, basing himself in Flagstaff where he was also able to train alongside fellow pros like Hobbs Kessler. The result? Hoppel feels far stronger in races than ever before.

“He hasn’t been in a race where he’s been tired at all this year, aerobically,” Whittlesey said.

Berardelli said he has been intentional about not overwhelming Wanyonyi early in his career and ensuring he still has room to grow as an athlete. Wanyonyi had never lifted weights before this year, for example. Recently, Berardelli has been talking with Lance Brauman, coach of Olympic 100m champion Noah Lyles, about sprint mechanics and possible tweaks Wanyonyi could make to his form. He believes Wanyonyi “has quite a lot still to discover about himself.”

“My impression is that there is something in terms of biomechanics in those final 80 meters where Wanyonyi can improve a little bit,” Berardelli said. “…But then I realized maybe Wanyonyi was not ready [to make that change] yet this season. “

It’s also worth remembering that, in Wanyonyi, we are dealing with one of the biggest talents in the history of the event. This is a guy who, back in 2021, ran 1:43.76 to win the World U20 title three weeks after his 17th birthday. In 2022, still 17, he was 4th at Worlds. He finished 2nd last year; now he’s the Olympic champion at 20. Most athletes are going to improve a lot from age 17 to age 20 if they stay healthy. Wanyonyi is no different; he’s just starting from a much higher level.

Berardelli, Woods, and Whittlesey also cited the value of competition in bringing out the best in their athletes. Look at the men’s 1500 meters, where Jakob Ingebrigtsen has forced his opponents to reach a new level in order to beat him (and has dragged those who cannot to a series of personal bests). Wanyonyi and Arop occupy a similar place in the 800 right now, pushing others to run faster and daring the rest of the field to come with them. Of the 12 sub-1:41s in 2024, all but one came in a race where Wanyonyi or Arop was leading at halfway.

“A key player running fast [can] essentially elevate the whole game,” Burns said. “Had Donavan Brazier not gotten injured after 2019, I think we would have seen what we’re seeing now probably much, much earlier. Marco Arop probably would have ascended much faster.”

Hoppel expressed similar sentiments. His personal best prior to this year was 1:43.23, which he ran in Monaco in 2020 in a race where he shadowed Brazier almost the entire way.

“Donavan Brazier, when he was still running, he was kind of pulling us along here on the American side,” Hoppel said. “When you see a guy run [1:41], it’s like, all right, well we’ve gotta step it up and be there too.”

Doping?

When I asked Berardelli about why the 800 has been so fast this year, he rattled off a number of the reasons listed above – “better shoes, better tracks, better confidence, bicarb, the capacity to sustain the pace more on the second lap.”

Then he paused.

“Of course we have to mention another aspect,” Berardelli said, reluctantly. “It is doping. But I don’t want even to think about it.”

Berardelli firmly believes Wanyonyi to be clean. But he acknowledged he cannot know with certainty what Wanyonyi does in private, let alone any of the athletes he does not coach. In the 2010s, Berardelli was charged with administering EPO to one of his top athletes, former Boston Marathon champion Rita Jeptoo. Berardelli denied any involvement and was ultimately cleared after a judge found no evidence to support the claim.

The last man to run 1:41 before this year, Nijel Amos, was banned three years in 2022 after admitting to using the banned substance GW1516. And in August, L’Equipe reported that French authorities raided Sedjati’s room at the Olympics as part of an investigation targeting him and his coach Amar Benida; Sedjati has not competed since Paris, though he is entered in this week’s Diamond League final in Brussels (Algerian media reports he has also been dealing with a calf injury).

But so far, Sedjati has not been suspended and none of the other top men in the event in 2024 have been sanctioned for any sort of anti-doping rule violation. Could some of the top athletes be doping? It is always a possibility, but anything beyond that is speculation.

Project 99 coming to fruition

So what is driving the fast times in the 800 this year? The most likely answer is that it’s a little bit of everything. The top runners are holding on better on the second lap, probably due to a combination of bicarb and running a tad less aggressively early in the race. The shoes might help. One or two of them (gulp) might be doping. Last but not least, 2024 featured a talented crop of athletes pushing each other and coming of age at the same time.

For the top 800 runners of today, Project 99 is still more than a second away. Woods believes that if it is to become a reality, that final factor will be the most important of all.

“I think the world record is going to get broken a few times over the next four to five years if these guys can stay healthy,” Woods said. “[For Project 99 to work], we need Wanyonyi, we need Djamel Sedjati, we need Tual, we need Bryce, we need all of these guys. Max Burgin. All of those [Olympic] finalists, all of the Kenyans that are running 1:42 now, all of these guys need each other so that somebody – hopefully it’s Team Arop along with the tutelage of Coach Woods – figures it out first to run under 1:40.”

Talk about this article on the world-famous LetsRun messageboard: Inside “Project 99”: Why the 800m Is Faster Than Ever and the Race for the First Sub-1:40.