American athletics prodigy Cooper Lutkenhaus broke the world junior indoor 800-meters document on Saturday (February 15, 2026) with a victory in 1min 44.03secs on the Sound Working meet in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
The 17-year-old Texan received the invitational occasion by 0.70 of a second over Penn State’s Handal Roban to turn into the sixth-fastest athlete indoors in 800m historical past.
Lutkenhaus erased the under-20 world document of 1:44.35 set in January 2000 by Russian Yuriy Borzakovskiy, who received 800m Olympic gold in 2004 at Athens.
Lutkenhaus was a shocking runner-up ultimately yr’s American championships at Eugene, Oregon, to earn a berth within the 2025 World Championships at Tokyo.
Additionally within the Winston-Salem meet, Paris Olympic 1,500m champion Cole Hocker received 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 historical past behind the world document of three:45.14 set by Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen final February in France.
Printed – February 16, 2026 05:14 am IST