Olympic medallist Arop in chase for 800-metre world record at Ultimate Championship

For Marco Arop, the key to running fast is not thinking about running fast. Especially when there’s a championship to win.

The Canadian is among a handful of the world’s top 800-metre runners battling for supremacy while chasing Kenyan David Rudisha’s 14-year-old world record of 1:40.91.

The World Athletics Ultimate Championship this weekend in Budapest, Hungary, presents another global stage for Arop, Algeria’s Djamel Sedjati and Kenya’s Emmanuel Wanyonyi to chase that elusive glory.

“The fact that there are a few of us that have been really close for the past few years now, and no one has gotten it yet, just goes to show how difficult that world record is to achieve,” Arop said.

“Of course, I think we all believe that we’re capable of breaking it. There’s just so many things that have to go right for that type of performance.”

The Edmonton native acknowledged the record may not fall at the upcoming championships, but he’s felt capable of a sub-1:41 performance for some time.

“At least I personally feel like I’ve been capable of running that for a couple of years now,” he said.

Arop recalled running a personal best of 1:43.2 in 2021, then believing for the next two years that he was capable of going under 1:43.

“I knew that I was in 1:42 shape, but just getting that performance on the day was the biggest challenge, and it wasn’t until the end of the (2023) season that I finally broke that 1:43 barrier.”

That feeling has returned for Arop, only now the target is going under 1:41. His season best is 1:41.84, and his personal best is 1:41.20.

“This is almost a repeat of that where I know I’m capable of doing it, but haven’t done it yet,” he said. “So now it’s just a matter of when.”

“What’s the day going to look like? What’s the preparation leading up to the race going to feel like? I think stuff like that gets me excited, because you only get maybe a handful of times in your career, moments like that where everything just clicks, and you get it right.”

Arop, a three-time worlds medallist (one gold, two bronze) and Olympic silver medallist, will be part of the Canadian contingent that includes superstar hammer thrower Ethan Katzberg, seven-time Olympic medallist Andre De Grasse (200), Aaron Brown (200), Christopher Morales Williams (400), Audrey Leduc (100) and Sade McCreath (100), along with a mixed 4×100 relay team.

The three-day meet features a US$10-million prize pool, with winners in each event earning $150,000. The lucrative payouts are well above what athletes typically earn on track and field’s international circuit.

The 27-year-old Arop enters the championship dissatisfied with his recent performances but feeling the “healthiest” and “fittest” he’s been all season after dealing with an Achilles injury that lingered from 2025.

The mental side of dealing with the injury was tough for Arop, who said 800 runners are conditioned to push through pain.

“We love the pain, and sometimes that’s not a factor in training, like that’s something that’s going to slow us down,” he said. “This year I’ve had to learn to take that seriously. If I feel pain, maybe not even the day of the workout but the following day, I would have to back off on the load, sometimes completely and just take full rest days.

“And that was a challenge because we always try to push ourselves and this was the case where we wanted to, of course, keep loading it, keep loading the Achilles, but not overdo it because if you overtrain it, it can get even worse.”

With the injury behind him, Arop is looking for his results to catch up with how he feels.

“Now I’m at a place where I’m feeling the best I’ve felt in a long time, but the performances just haven’t quite represented that, so I’m hoping that … (I can) start showing what I’m really supposed to be looking like,” Arop said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 10, 2026.