Faith Kipyegon, a woman from Kenya, ran a new 1500-meter world record at the Florence Diamond League meeting on Friday, and Laura Muir of the United Kingdom finished in a distant second place.
At the beginning of the final lap, Muir was 10 meters behind the defending world and Olympic champion from Kenya, who is 29 years old.
And Kipyegon blew through the competition to win in 3 minutes 49.11 seconds, becoming the first runner to break the 3:50 barrier, while Muir achieved a personal best of 3:57.09 seconds in the race.
In 2015, Genzebe Dibaba of Ethiopia set the previous record at 3:50.07 seconds.
Also finishing in fourth place with the season’s best time was Ciara Mageean of Ireland, who ran a time of 4:00.95.
Although this is Kenya woman Kipyegon’s second time winning the world championship and the Olympic gold medal, it is the first time she has ever broken the world record.
Her previous best time was 3:50.37, which she achieved in August last year. She now holds the first and third fastest times in history.
Dina Asher-Smith, a former world champion in the 200-meter dash, was forced to withdraw from the women’s 100-meter dash moments before the start of the competition because she began to experience cramping in the blocks.
She explained herself on social media by saying, “Other than that, all good, but I didn’t want to risk anything today.”
Imani-Lara Lansiquot of the United Kingdom came in third place with a time of 11.16 seconds, finishing behind Marie-Josee Ta Lou of the Ivory Coast (10.97) and Gina Lueckenkemper of Germany (11.09).
Fred Kerley, the reigning world champion in the 100-meter dash, was unable to compete against Lamont Marcell Jacobs, the reigning Olympic winner in the event because the Italian had not fully recovered from back injury that had caused him to miss the Diamond League meet in Rabat the previous Sunday.
Kerley ran a time of 9.94 seconds to finish ahead of Kenya’s Ferdinand Omanyala (10.05) and fellow American Trayvon Bromell (10.09). Kerley is still undefeated in this season.
Erriyon Knighton, meanwhile, cruised to victory in the men’s 200-meter race with a personal best time of 19.89 seconds.
Jereem Richards of Trinidad and Tobago and Aaron Brown of Canada finished in 20.28 seconds. Still, the 19-year-old runner from the United States ended a significant distance ahead of both of them with a time of 20.31 seconds.
