January to march of every year, is the time of year track and field’s fan base turn their attention to the indoor circuit. A format of the sport that started in the 1800s in England by the upper class, indoor running is of course a different challenge to  outdoors and managed to create its own set of legends.

Today we will be focusing on a few of those, specifically as we look on the progression of the men’s indoor 200 meter world record.

IAAF, now known as world Athletics, started ratifying world records in 1987, meaning under their standards, the first world record was set in 1987, however, the first known world record was set in 1901 by Maxie Long who ran 22.6 seconds while competing in New York city. Long at 22 year s old coming of a 400m gold at the Paris Olympics a year prior. This record stood on the book for 18 years.

 Athletics had no centralized record ratification at the time, especially with the manual timing system being used around those era it became difficult. That said, during the manual timing era, the record was broken 10 times over the span of 83 years.

In 1972, the electronic timing era began, but it was not until February 1, 1984 that the world record was lowered, and it was done so by  German sprinter Ralph Lubke, who in Stuttgart dashed to 20.67 seconds. Interesting enough, this location became a place where fast 200m times were run indoors, tying with new York for having three indoor world records.A year later Lubke would make it 4, as he once again showed up in Stuttgart to lower the world record once again to 20.57 seconds.

Lubke’s record breaking form indoors unlike his previous counter parts who had record breaking performances came off the back off a strong 200m ability outdoors, as at the time he broke the world record, he was already the 5^th fastest German ever in the 200m.

His reign as the fastest ever indoors came to an end only two years later though, as Stefan Tili, the guy who was seemingly the replacement for Pietro Mennea, dropped it to 20.52 seconds. Stefan was an absolute beast in Italian sprinting at this point, winning multiple national championships, along with a world championship silver in the 4 by 1 relay, and 60m European title. As good as he was, the record was not to be lowered by him again, but it would remain in Europe, when Bruno Marie Rose stormed to 20.36 seconds  to win the 1987 European indoor championships, defending his home turf. His indoor 200m skill was well renowned because despite his sub-par outdoor 200m skills, he was able to grab a silver medal at the world indoors, that same year.

Such a time proved difficult to take down, with quite a number of high profile sprinters failing to surpass the mark. None greater than Michael Johnson who could only drop a time of  20.55 in 1991.

It was not until 1995 that British sprint legend, Linford Christie took down the mark on the same track, winning a french indoor meet in a time 20.25 seconds. This was another major step, because the record once again remained in Europe, which pointed to something, either the more advanced indoor tracks, or the amount of indoor work done by these sprinters due to the winter conditions in these countries. This question had to be asked, because we are looking at was a 19 year hold on the record by European territories, even with the growing popularity of indoor running inside the united states that began with the NCAA indoor championships that started in 1965.

That said, just a year later Frankie Fredericks would put on what still is the greatest display of indoor 200m sprinting, as he stormed to 19.92 seconds in France, bringing the record outside of Europe for the first time since 1974, and gave Africa it’s own sprinting record. He was a high profile athlete outdoors, gathering multiple Olympic medals, world championship medals, and also going indoors to win a world title.

That record is still standing, 27 years strong, and he still remains the only man to go under 20 seconds in the event, and with the increase in high profile athletes competing indoors you would think there would be a challenge by now, but that race was a once in a lifetime, he was on the fastest indoor track in the world with strong competition at the absolute peak of his career.