Ethiopian Lamecha Girma broke the world record for the 3000m indoors by more than a second by winning in 7 min 23 sec 81 at the meeting in Liévin (Pas-de-Calais) on Wednesday. It beats the previous record by nine hundredths.
A new world record was broken on the Liévin track on Wednesday evening. Ethiopian Lamecha Girma completed the 3000m in 7 min 23 sec 81. The previous world record dated back more than 25 years: Kenyan Daniel Komen had achieved 7 min 24 sec 90 in Budapest on February 6, 1998.
Girma, 22, raced in the lead in the last four laps, closely followed by Spaniard Mohamed Katir, who broke the European record in 7 min 24 sec 68, a time also lower than the old record of the world.
Outdoor 3000m steeplechase specialist
The Ethiopian specializes in the 3000m outdoor steeplechase, a discipline in which he was Olympic vice-champion in 2021 in Tokyo and world vice-champion in 2019 in Doha and 2022 in Eugene. Indoors, he also won the silver medal, in the 3000m, at the 2022 Worlds.
His best time so far over 3000 m indoors had been set on the same track in Liévin, in 2021: he finished third there, in 7 min 27 sec 98, in a race won by his compatriot Getnet Wale. He had then failed just 8 hundredths of the world record that Girma broke on Wednesday.