LIEVIN, FRANCE: Ethiopia’s Lamecha Girma shattered the 25-year-old world indoor 3,000m record on Wednesday by more than one second at the Lievin meeting as Armand ‘Mondo’ Duplantis won his third successive pole vault event.
Girma clocked 7min 23.81sec to better the old mark of 7:24.90 set by Kenya’s Daniel Komen in Budapest in February 1998. The Ethiopian raced alone over the closing four laps and was followed home by Spaniard Mohamed Katir, who broke the European record in 7:24.68, a time also under the old world record.
Girma is a specialist outdoors in the 3000m outdoor steeplechase, an event in which he was the 2021 Olympic silver medalist.
He was also runner-up in the world championships in Doha in 2019 and last year at Eugene. Indoors, he won silver in the 3000m at the 2022 worlds.