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Jebet smashes steeplechase world record

August 28, 2016

Olympic champion Ruth Jebet has smashed the world record for the women’s 3,000 meters steeplechase. The Kenyan-born 19-year-old, who runs for Bahrain, took more than six seconds off the previous best.

https://p.dw.com/p/1JrH2
Ruth Jebet aus Bahrain
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/C.P.Tesson

Running at the Paris Diamond League meeting on Saturday, Jebet clocked 8:52.78 seconds, beating the previous record of 8:58.81 set by Russian Gulnara Galkina at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Jebet narrowly missed out on the record when she won Bahrain’s first-ever Olympic gold medal in Rio de Janeiro this month.

“I tried many times to beat the world record and today we decided to push each other to go for a good time,” Jebet said. “I was not expecting such a big difference with the record.”

Jebet’s performance was so dominant that she beat Olympic silver medalist Hyvin Kiyeng of Kenya into second by almost 10 seconds.

Another world record was set on Sunday when Poland's Olympic champion Anita Wlodarczyk broke her own best in the hammer with a throw of 82.98 meters in Warsaw.

No other woman has exceeded 80 metres in the event and Wlodarczyk has now done it 11 times, including her latest effort which bettered her previous record of 82.29 meters set at the Games in Rio.

idr/RTRS/AFP