(AFP) – Ethiopia distance-running great Kenenisa Bekele added to his collection of notable landmarks by setting a new world-best performance mark in the two miles at the international indoor meeting here Saturday.
The reigning Olympic 10,000 metres champion, on the same track where compatriot Haile Gebrselassie achieved the previous fastest time, shaved 0.34 seconds off his fellow Ethiopian’s mark when finishing in a time of 8 minutes 04.35 seconds.
Bekele, a second off the required pace to set a new world-best time at one stage, rallied with an especially quick final 200 metres lap.
And there was more long-distance success for Ethiopia in the women’s 3,000 metres, won in front-running style by Gelete Burka in 8:31.94 – the third-fastest time in history.
Sweden’s Olympic heptathlon champion Carolina Kluft came out on top ahead of Kelly Sotherton in the three-event challenge.
Home favourite Sotherton won the 400 metres race in 52.47 secs, the fastest time by a British woman this year, but Kluft did enough to defeat Sotherton, in a competition also featuring the 60m hurdles, by 18 points.
Meanwhile Britain’s Commonwealth champion Phillips Idowu warmed-up for next month’s World Indoor Championships in Valencia by winning the triple jump with an effort of 17.21 metres.
Idowu was the only man to jump more than 17 metres in a competition where Dmitrij Valukevic of Slovakia was the runner-up, with third place going to the United States’s Kenta Bell.