Joshua Cheptegei and Letensebet Gidey were both in cracking form at the NN Running Valencia World Record Meet in Spain where both athletes shattered the World Records (WR) in the men’s 10000m and women’s 5000m respectively.
First up was Gidey who clocked a massive 14:06.62 to win the women’s 5000m, taking over four seconds off the WR held by her compatriot, Tiruneshi Dibaba at 14:11.15 from 2008.
She was paced by WR holder in the 3000m Steeplechase, Beatrice Chepkoech and Spaniard Esther Guerrero, while becoming the 3rd consecutive Ethiopian woman to hold the WR over the distance, following the efforts of Meseret Defar and Tiruneshi Dibaba.
Joshua Cheptegei then took to the track in the men’s 10000m where he blasted an astonishing 26:11.00 to win the event, taking the second of Kenenisa Bekele’s records off the top of the charts, having broken his 5000m mark at the Monaco Diamond League 54 days before.
In a race paced by Australia’s Matthew Ramsden up to the 3000m mark and the pre-event World Leader, Nicholas Kimeli to 4000m, Cheptegei took hold of the event, riding out hard through even 1000m splits of 2:37 and 2:38 for 9 laps.
He was outside Bekele’s pace to the WR at 6000m but he gained ground back and completed the last 1000m with a 2:34 split, putting an end to an amazing night with a flourish.
Cheptegei has now broken World Records in all of his 3 races in 2020, the first of those being his 5km on the road in Monaco, 5000m on track also in Monaco and now his 10000m in Valencia.
Kimeli finished the race 2nd in 27:12.98.
