The 1983 IAAF World Women's Road Race Championships was the inaugural edition of the annual international road running competition organised by the International Amateur Athletics Federation (IAAF).
The competition was hosted by the United States on December 3, 1983 in San Diego, California and featured one race only: a 10k run for women.
The United States won the team competition, with the third American runner Ellen Hart Peña also placing in the top ten.
[2] The Soviet Union's Raisa Sadreydinova was a prominent entrant, having set a 10,000 metres world record earlier that year, but she failed to finish.
The competition proved a development in global level competitions for women in long-distance running: the launch of this race was a push by the IAAF to the International Olympic Committee to gain Olympic recognition of this distance for women.