(IAAF) Just five days after breaking the world indoor 1500m record, Ethiopia’s Genzebe Dibaba smashed the world indoor 3000m record at Stockholm’s XL Galan, an IAAF Indoor Permit meeting, with a stunning 8:16.60 run on Thursday (6).
Once again the pacemakers did a perfect job and set Dibaba up perfectly to attack the 8:23.72 mark set by Meseret Defar in 2007.
At 2000m, reached in 5:34.25, Dibaba was more than four seconds quicker than Defar was at the same stage when she set the previous world indoor record seven years ago.
But the 22-year-old showed no signs of slowing and continued to extend her lead over the world indoor champion at the distance, Hellen Obiri.
She crossed the line in 8:16.60 to take more than seven seconds from her compatriot’s mark. It is also an outright African record, bettering the 8:23.23 set outdoors by Edith Masai in 2002, and is the fastest performance indoors or outdoors since 1993.
Only three women – Chinese trio Wang Junxia, Qu Yunxia and Zhang Linli – have ever run faster.
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