American teen Cooper Lutkenhaus set the world indoor junior 800-meter record by winning a race in 1:44.03 at Winston-Salem, North Carolina (Jewel SAMAD) (Jewel SAMAD/AFP/AFP)AFPSun, February 15, 2026 at 3:25 AM UTC·1 min readAmerican athletics prodigy Cooper Lutkenhaus broke the world junior indoor 800-meters record on Saturday with a victory in 1min 44.03secs at the Sound Running meet in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
The 17-year-old Texan won the invitational event by 0.70 of a second over Penn State's Handal Roban to become the sixth-fastest athlete indoors in 800m history.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementLutkenhaus erased the under-20 world record of 1:44.35 set in January 2000 by Russian Yuriy Borzakovskiy, who won 800m Olympic gold in 2004 at Athens.
Lutkenhaus was a stunning runner-up at last year's American championships at Eugene, Oregon, to earn a berth in the 2025 World Championships at Tokyo.
Also in the Winston-Salem meet, Paris Olympic 1,500m champion Cole Hocker won the mile in 3:45.94 with fellow American Cooper Teare second in 3:50.49.
Hocker clocked the second fastest world indoor mile time in history behind the world record of 3:45.14 set by Norway's Jakob Ingebrigtsen last February in France.
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