On Saturday (24th), Canada’s Christopher Morales Williams broke the indoor 400m world record with a time of 44.49* at the SEC Indoor Championships in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
With this performance, the 19-year-old surpassed the world record of 44.57 points set by American Keron Clement in Fayetteville in 2005 and the world record of 44.52 points set by Michael Norman in Texas in 2018. However, this record was not recognized as a world record.
Morales-Williams won the Clemson Tiger Paw Invitational earlier this month by more than a second, beating his previous best set by 0.9.
The University of Georgia sophomore won Friday’s heat in 45.58 seconds, the second-fastest performance of his career to date at this stage.
His run on Saturday means that the men’s and women’s indoor 400m world records have been broken within a week, with Femke Boll breaking her own world record to 49.24 seconds in Apeldoorn last Sunday.
Morales-Williams was part of the 4x400m team that won Canada’s world U20 bronze medal in Cali in 2022 and won the Pan American U20 400m silver medal a year later.
He ran an indoor PR of 46.05 seconds in the 400-meter season opener in Boston in January, improving his record to 45.39 at Clemson and breaking the record at Arkansas.
*Subject to normal ratification procedures