Top 10 Record-Breaking Women You've Never Heard of
#10: Sufiya Khan Golden Quadrilateral Run
The Golden Quadrilateral is a collection of highways in India that connect the four cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai for a total distance of just over 6,000 kilometers. How long do you think it would take you to run the entire route? We’re not sure either, but we feel confident in saying more than 110 days, 23 hours and 24 minutes. That’s how long it took Sufiya Khan to complete it in 2021. It made her the fastest person to ever finish the run, for which she earned a Guinness World Record. And that’s only one of her many incredible accomplishments. She was also the first woman to ever complete the 480-kilometer Manali to Leh Ultramarathon - which she did in just 6 and a half days.
#9: Jasmin Paris Spine Race
Another amazing ultrarunner makes the list. This time it’s British runner Jasmin Paris, who was the first woman to win the Spine Race. What’s the Spine Race you ask? Well, it’s a 268-mile run along one of England’s national trails called the Pennine (pen-nine) Way - so named for the fact that much of it runs along the Pennine hills. Not only did Paris become the first woman to win the race in 2019, she also finished with the fastest time ever - 83 hours, 12 minutes and 23 seconds. Oh, and did we forget to mention that she also had a 14-month-old baby girl who she was expressing milk for during the race?
#8: Victoria Evans Solo Atlantic Row
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Victoria Evans rowed solo across the Atlantic Ocean in just 40 days (and 19 hours). The British lawyer crossed 2,559 nautical miles all alone, with nothing but a boat, oars, and her own physical strength and endurance. She set a new record for the fastest female of this challenge, absolutely demolishing the previous record by nine whole days. Imagine rowing 12 to 14 hours every day and only ever sleeping in 20 to 30-minute intervals…for 40 whole days! Evans attributes her success to perseverance and says she’s happy to be proof of the kind of feats women are capable of achieving.
#7: Irene Schouten 3000m & 5000m Speed Skating Events
It’s hard to win a gold medal at the Olympics. It’s even harder to win one and set an Olympic record in the process. Still, that seems like a walk in the park compared to winning two gold medals and setting two Olympic records. And, yet, Irene Schouten wasn’t walking when she did just that - she was skating, and skating fast. At the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing, the Dutch speed skater won the 5000-meter and the 3000-meter events and, in both cases, did it faster than any woman in the history of the Olympic games.
#6: Tiny Broadwick First Female Parachutist
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The first person to make a parachute jump out of an airplane was either Grant Morton in 1911 or Albert Berry in 1912 - no one’s a hundred percent sure. While there is some debate there, there’s no debate when it comes to the first woman to ever do it. That honor belongs to Georgia Ann "Tiny" Thompson Broadwick, who made her record-setting leap in September of 1912 - just six months after Berry. But that’s not all, Broadwick later became the first person (man or woman) to make a jump out of a seaplane. To top it all off, she became a true pioneer with her invention of the ripcord.
#5: Brittany Walsh Farthest Arrow Shot Using Feet
Brittany Walsh’s feet have taken her some pretty awesome places, from the “Late Show with David Letterman” to the Guinness World Records - but not in the way you might have guessed. While the most amazing thing most of us can do with our feet is knock the remote off the coffee table when we’re too lazy to lean forward, Walsh’s feet have shot arrow upon arrow from her bow. And not only has does she shoot using her feet, she’s also shot farther than anyone else ever has: 12.31 meters, which is a little over 40 feet.
#4: Cat Dixon & Raz Marsden Fastest Time Tandem Cycling the Globe
For most people, March of 2020 will forever be remembered as the month the Covid-19 pandemic changed our lives. But, for Cat Dixon and Raz Marsden it will also be remembered as the month they arrived back in the UK after having spent 263 days, 8 hours and 7 minutes circumnavigating the globe on a tandem bicycle. The duo traveled 18,263 miles through 25 countries and did it faster than any other pair ever had - the old record being 281 days, set the previous year by Edward Collier and Louis Paul Snellgrove (loo-iss).
#3: Jacqueline Cochran Aviation Records
If we told you that Jacqueline Cochran was the first woman to fly a bomber plane across the Atlantic Ocean you would be impressed. And if we also told you that she was the first female pilot to break the sound barrier, you might be doubly impressed. But to steal a page from the world of infomercials, ‘wait, there’s more!’ Cochran, aka the “Speed Queen” set numerous speed, distance and altitude records. So many, in fact, that when she died in 1980, no other pilot - man or woman - held more aviation records than she did.
#2: Peggy Whitson Time in Space
Jacqueline Cochran set her numerous records in the sky. But, for all of Peggy Whitson’s amazing attainments we need to go even higher. Astronaut Whitson hung up her space suit in 2018 but, prior to that, her career in space was one for the history (and record) books. Not only did she command the International Space Station two times, she was also the first woman to do so. In addition, Whitson holds the record for the oldest female spacewalker. Maybe most impressive of all, though, is Whitson’s time spent in space. Throughout her career, she’s accumulated a whopping total of 665 days, putting her in the number 10 spot on the global list of astronauts who’ve spent the most time in space!
#1: Junko Tabei The Seven Summits
On May 16th, 1975, Japanese mountaineer Junko Tabei became the 36th person to ever summit Mount Everest. The difference between her and the 35 people that did it before her is that they were all men, which makes Tabei the first-ever woman to accomplish the feat. It’s an unbelievable achievement, but Tabei didn’t stop there. She kept climbing. And, over the next 17 years, she would go on to complete the Seven Summits challenge. In doing so, she became the first woman to ascend the highest mountains of all seven continents. While she wasn’t able to complete her personal goal of summiting the highest mountain in every country around the world, Tabei did make it to the top of at least 70 of them.
