2019 IAAF World Championships

48.14! Salwa Eid Naser Shocks Shaunae Miller-Uibo For 400m Title

48.14! Salwa Eid Naser Shocks Shaunae Miller-Uibo For 400m Title

Salwa Eid Naser, 21, just ran the fastest 400m since Marita Koch's world record (47.60) was set in 1985 en route to global gold.

Oct 3, 2019 by Jennifer Zahn
48.14! Salwa Eid Naser Shocks Shaunae Miller-Uibo For 400m Title

This race has so many possible superlatives, I'm not sure where to start. 

Salwa Eid Naser, 21, just ran the fastest 400m since Marita Koch's world record (47.60) was set in 1985, burying 2019 global leader and 2016 Olympic champion Shaunae Miller-Uibo en route to claiming the world title for Bahrain. 

Naser's winning time? 48.14—nearly a full second better than the PR she entered the meet with, 49.08, and the third-fastest time in world history. It was the 2019 Diamond League champion's fifth 400m race this week—she also raced two rounds of the mixed 4x400m relay, in which she delivered a 49.70 split during the final.

Miller-Uibo, 25, who finished runner-up in a 48.37 PR—the sixth-fastest time ever—immediately sat down on the track after crossing the line, looking absolutely stunned and searching for answers after missing out on gold at her second world championships in a row. 


The Nigerian-born Naser also beat Miller-Uibo in London in 2017, taking silver behind the United States' Phyllis Francis.

Here's the updated world top 10 list following that insane final:

47.6KochGDR1985
47.99KratochvilováCZE1983
48.14NaserBRN2019
48.25PérecFRA1996
48.27VladykinaUKR1985
48.37Miller-UiboBAH2019
48.58KocembováCZE1983
48.63FreemanAUS1996
48.7RichardsUSA2006
48.83BriscoUSA1984

American fourth-placer, South Carolina's Wadeline Jonathas, added some more accolades to her unique, wide-ranging resume as a top world finisher, all-dates collegiate record-breaker, and the No. 9 performer in American history, as she's also won NCAA titles in Division I and III. 

Francis, the defending 2017 world champion, finished fifth in 49.61—a PR.

The top five finishers all ran PRs in the third-fastest world championships final in history.

POSATHLETECOUNTRYMARKREACTION TIME
1Salwa EidNASERBRN48.14 WL0.186
2ShaunaeMILLER-UIBOBAH48.37 AR0.145
3SherickaJACKSONJAM49.47 PB0.184
4WadelineJONATHASUSA49.60 PB0.181
5PhyllisFRANCISUSA49.61 PB0.197
6Stephenie AnnMCPHERSONJAM50.890.124
7JustynaŚWIĘTY-ERSETICPOL50.950.228
8IgaBAUMGART-WITANPOL51.290.187