The first woman below 1:50.0 was Liselotte Landbeck, who skated a 1:48.5 on 22 January 1933 in Davos, which Synnøve Lie a year later improved on the same rink to 1:48.1. This soon proved not fast enough, as Verné Lesche from Finland set the record to 1:45.7 a month later, during the unofficial Women's World Allround Speed Skating Championships of 1934 in Oslo. At the end of the 1934/35 season that time fell to U.S. speed skater Kit Klein, who skated a 1:42.3 in Kongsberg. The next woman to improve the world record, Laila Schou Nilsen, brought the record down to 1:38.8 during the Women's World Allround Speed Skating Championships of 1937 in Davos.