FRANCE:
Ethiopia’s Lamecha Girma broke the 25-year-old’s world indoor 3,000mi record on Wednesday by more than one second at the Lievin meeting. Armand ‘Mondo’ Duplantis won his third straight match at the poles.
Girma clocked 7min 23.81sec to better the previous record of 7:24.90 set by Kenya’s Daniel Komen in Budapest in February 1998.
The Ethiopian ran alone in the top four followed by Spaniard Mohamed Katir at home, who broke the European record of 7:24.68. also a time under the old world clock.
Girma is an outdoor specialist in the 3000m outdoor steeplechase, an event that made him a 2021 Olympic silver medalist.
He was also runner-up at the world championships in Doha in 2019 and last year in Eugene. In it, he won silver in the 3000m at the 2022 world.
World and Olympic champion Duplantis easily won the pole vault by clearing 6.01m but the impressive Swede decided not to attempt to beat his own world record of 6.21m.
It was the third win for 23-year-old Duplantis of the indoor season after 6.10mi Uppsala on February 2nd and 6.06mi Berlin last Friday.
He did enough to beat Italian Claudio Stecchi (5.82m) and Kurtis Marschall of Australia (also 5.82m).
Kenya’s Ferdinand Omanyala won the 60m in 6.54sec, beating Italy’s 100m Olympic champion Marcell Jacobs.
Jacobs, a two-time winner before Lievin, clocked 6.57 with Arthur Cisse of Ivory Coast third with a time of 6.59sec.
Great Britain’s 800m specialist Keely Hodgkinson set a world record of 1:57.71sec as she dominated the field, leaving Kenya’s Commonwealth champion Mary Moraa in the 20m. back in 2:00.61.
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