Carol Lafayette-Boyd is now the world’s fastest 80-year-old
The 80-year-old from Regina ran a 16-second 100m at the Canadian Masters Championships to break the 80+ world record

Canada’s Carol Lafayette-Boyd has become the world’s fastest 80-year-old woman, breaking the 80+ age-group world record for 100m on Friday evening in 16.23 seconds at the Canadian Masters Track and Field Championships in her hometown of Regina.

Earlier this month, Lafayette-Boyd broke the women’s 200m world record for 80+ in a blazing time of 34.90 seconds. She now has 15 world records to her name (indoor and outdoor).
To put her spectacular time in perspective, her speed is 22.3 km/h per hour, which is faster than the pace of the world half marathon record.
At the same meet, LaFayette-Boyd also set a world record in the long jump, with a jump of 3.69m. She has now set three world records in July.
LaFayette-Boyd is a member of Regina’s Excel Athletika Track and Field Club, which hosted the national masters event. In 2018, she was named Athlete of the Year by World Masters Athletics (WMA).

“It’s nice to do better than I did before and it’s nice to break the records,” LaFayette-Boyd said to the Saskatoon Star, “but I have so many medals that I take them home now and give them to my coaches.”
Lafayette-Boyd started running in her late 40s and didn’t win her first competitive track event until age 50. The great-grandmother has no plans of slowing down or hanging up her spikes as she plans to continue running for the rest of her life.