Letesenbet Gidey breaks 10km record just two days after it was set

An Ethiopian athlete has broken a world record for just the fourth time in 28 years, but only two days after the previous best was set.

Ethiopia’s Letesenbet Gidey smashed the women’s 10,000 metres world record on Tuesday, on the same track where Dutch runner Sifan Hassan had set the previous record just two days previously.

Gidey’s time of 29 minutes 1.03sec at Ethiopia’s Olympic trials held in Hengelo in the Netherlands means she now holds the world records in the 5000m and 10,000m.

Aided by the Wavelight technology that paces runners, she sliced a remarkable 1min 20.2sec off her previous best for 10,000m of 30:21.23, set at the World Championships in Doha in 2019.

Letesenbet Gidey Lowers The Women's 10,000m World Record To 29:01.03 @dyestat 📰https://t.co/pANZqh9SD6
📸 @GlobalSportsCompic.twitter.com/hXLVArsxvb

— RunnerSpace (@runnerspace) June 8, 2021

Gidey, 23, finished more than a minute ahead of Tsigie Gebreselama and improved Hassan’s two-day-old mark by five seconds.

Ababel Yeshaneh tracked Gidey for most of the way as they followed the blue lights around the track infield.

Yeshaneh dropped off the pace as the race wore on, but Gidey continued her metronomic pace, producing one 72-second lap after another.

In the final lap, Gidey navigated lapped runners to sprint home and stop the clock at 29:01.03.

“I expected to run a world record,” said Gidey.

“I’d like to try to break the world record again and break 29 minutes.”

She becomes the first woman to hold the 5000m and 10,000m world records simultaneously since Norway’s Ingrid Kristiansen did so from 1986-1993.

Gidey smashed a two-day old record by 5 seconds.

Gidey’s achievement is all the more special when you consider that between 1993 and 2016, not one person came within 20 seconds of the record set by China’s Wang Junxia, which stood at 29 minutes and 31 seconds.

Wang’s record was broken by Ethiopia’s Almaz Ayana at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, when she clocked a time of 29 minutes and 17.45 seconds.

Now, the record is all Gidey’s as she prepares for the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.

— AFP

Originally published as Letesenbet Gidey breaks 10km record just two days after it was set