Defar sets world best as Richards and Isinbaeva march on.
September 15th 2007 17:30
A world record over the rarely run 2 mile event for Meseret Defar was the highlight of the golden league meeting held in Brussels last night.
In running 8.:8.58 the Etheopian beat the old record by a full 11 seconds and also set a new world leading 3000m time going through that distance in 8:24.81.
However a distance world record double was not to be as Kenenisa Bekele could not improve upon his own mark of 26:17.53 in the men’s 10,000m.
His effort of 26:46.18 was however the fastest time in the world this year and he was closely followed by 21 year old Kenyan Moses Masai who in running 26:49.20 took 14 seconds off of his personal best!
It was another explosively fast run from 100m world record holder Asafa Powell whose fluently ran race blossomed into a 9.84 with a -0.3m/s headwind.
The time represented a new meeting record and the joint second fastest time ever ran into a headwind, an accolade shared with….. Yep you guessed it, Tyson Gay.
In the women’s 100m returning world champion Veronica Campbell made no mistake, winning in a relaxed 11.11 and consigning a resurgent Christine Arron to second after the French woman won in Zurich a week ago.
The two remaining contenders for the Golden League $1 million jackpot both won again to keep alive their hopes of a big pay day but in vastly differing styles.
Just a month ago Sanya Richards was looking like a spent force over 400m.
The American had not qualified for Osaka and was beaten in Stockholm by her compatriot Alyson Felix, a part timer over the full lap and usually a 200m specialist.
Fast forward to last night and Richards came into this one after running world seasons best in Brussels en route to beating many of the athletes that featured in the world championship 400m final this year.
And last years female athlete of the year made no mistake here, further improving the world leading time to 49.29 and leaving the rest of the world, silver medallist Nicola Sanders and bronze medallist Novlene Williams included, in her wake.
In contrast Yelena Isinbaeva had to rely on count back to beat Svetlana Feofanova in the women’s pole vault.
Having cleared 4.80m at the 1st attempt Isinbaeva found she could go no higher and when Feofanova cleared the same height with her 3rd attempt a count back ensued.
Isinbaeva still won but an event that seemed such an impossibility a few weeks ago – that of her being beaten seems increasingly likely to occur in the final few meets of the season.
Isinbaeva completed her set of jumps with the now customary 3 attempts at a world record height of 5.02m – none of which were close however over in the high jump Blanka Vlasic seems much more likely to improve the 20 year old world record of 2.09m after comfortably clearing 2 metres for the umpteenth time this year.
She won here with 2.03m before having the bar raised to 2.10m and having several close failures.
She will look to Sunday and Berlin for another crack at a world record she seems certain to eventually break.
In running 8.:8.58 the Etheopian beat the old record by a full 11 seconds and also set a new world leading 3000m time going through that distance in 8:24.81.
However a distance world record double was not to be as Kenenisa Bekele could not improve upon his own mark of 26:17.53 in the men’s 10,000m.
His effort of 26:46.18 was however the fastest time in the world this year and he was closely followed by 21 year old Kenyan Moses Masai who in running 26:49.20 took 14 seconds off of his personal best!
It was another explosively fast run from 100m world record holder Asafa Powell whose fluently ran race blossomed into a 9.84 with a -0.3m/s headwind.
The time represented a new meeting record and the joint second fastest time ever ran into a headwind, an accolade shared with….. Yep you guessed it, Tyson Gay.
In the women’s 100m returning world champion Veronica Campbell made no mistake, winning in a relaxed 11.11 and consigning a resurgent Christine Arron to second after the French woman won in Zurich a week ago.
The two remaining contenders for the Golden League $1 million jackpot both won again to keep alive their hopes of a big pay day but in vastly differing styles.
Just a month ago Sanya Richards was looking like a spent force over 400m.
The American had not qualified for Osaka and was beaten in Stockholm by her compatriot Alyson Felix, a part timer over the full lap and usually a 200m specialist.
Fast forward to last night and Richards came into this one after running world seasons best in Brussels en route to beating many of the athletes that featured in the world championship 400m final this year.
And last years female athlete of the year made no mistake here, further improving the world leading time to 49.29 and leaving the rest of the world, silver medallist Nicola Sanders and bronze medallist Novlene Williams included, in her wake.
In contrast Yelena Isinbaeva had to rely on count back to beat Svetlana Feofanova in the women’s pole vault.
Having cleared 4.80m at the 1st attempt Isinbaeva found she could go no higher and when Feofanova cleared the same height with her 3rd attempt a count back ensued.
Isinbaeva still won but an event that seemed such an impossibility a few weeks ago – that of her being beaten seems increasingly likely to occur in the final few meets of the season.
Isinbaeva completed her set of jumps with the now customary 3 attempts at a world record height of 5.02m – none of which were close however over in the high jump Blanka Vlasic seems much more likely to improve the 20 year old world record of 2.09m after comfortably clearing 2 metres for the umpteenth time this year.
She won here with 2.03m before having the bar raised to 2.10m and having several close failures.
She will look to Sunday and Berlin for another crack at a world record she seems certain to eventually break.
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