Canada’s Christopher Morales Williams overcomes sickness to break world indoor 400m record
The 19-year-old from the University of Georgia ran the fastest indoor time, since Michael Norman in 2018, at the 2024 SEC Championships .
1 min
Athletics
Cristopher Morales Williams made athletics history at the SEC Indoor Championships in Fayetteville, Arkansas, on Saturday (24 February) by shattering the world indoor 400m record*.
Clocking 44.49 seconds, the 19-year-old Canadian surpassed the previous mark of 44.57 set by Kerron Clement of the USA in 2005 on the same track. William’s time also eclipsed Michael Norman’s performance in 2018 (44.52), which couldn’t be ratified as a world record.
The sophomore from the University of Georgia won his heat on Friday with a time of 45.58s and went on to dominate Saturday’s race despite facing illness in the morning. He secured a victory by over a second, finishing 0.9s faster than his previous best achieved at the Clemson Tiger Paw Invitational earlier this month.
Williams was part of Canada’s world U20 bronze medal-winning 4x400m team in Cali in 2022 and clinched silver at the Pan American U20 Championships the following year. He also holds the 400m national outdoor title.
His outstanding performance comes within a week of Femke Bol’s improvement of her own women’s world indoor 400m record.
*Subject to the usual ratification procedure
