Newcastle, England - Australia’s Craig Mottram and Ethiopia’s Meseret Defar capped their brilliant seasons on a glorious Tyneside afternoon today by becoming the fastest ever over 3Km on the roads, each beating the previous best around seven seconds.

Just two weeks after outkicking Kenenisa Bekele to the World Cup title in Athens, Mottram demonstrated his finishing speed again to beat Kenya’s former world 5000m champion Eliud Kipchoge to the men’s Newcastle/Gateshead Great North 3Km Road Race title in 7:41.7, while Defar notched up her third world best of the year with a runaway victory in the women’s race, clocking 8:46.9.

“I’ve beaten two of the best distance runners in the world in the last two weeks,” said a grinning Mottram afterwards, on the bank of Newcastle’s sparkling river Tyne. “It’s a great way to end the year and great to show someone can beat the Africans. Now I’m looking forward to a four or five week break. I think I deserve it.”

“It was my intention from the beginning to go after the record,” said Defar. “I want to be the IAAF’s athlete of the year, so after breaking the 5km record on the road and the track, and beating Tirunesh Dibaba a couple of times, I thought a third record here would be good.

“Now I’m going to have a holiday.”

Contrasting styles, same sterling result

The two runners’ immediate plans may be similar but they couldn’t have won in more contrasting styles in these well-supported precursors to tomorrow’s main event, the Great North Run Half Marathon from Newcastle to South Shields.

While Mottram shadowed Kipchoge until 200m from the line before surging past to take the title by less than 1.5 secods, Defar ran solo from start to finish to win the women’s race by a massive 21 seconds ahead of Russia’s Liliya Shobukhova.

The men’s race was a two-man affair from the beginning as Kipchoge, who beat Mottram in this race last year, set off at the front, clearly aiming to run the legs off the Australian. But Mottram is nothing if not dogged and he hung on to the Kenyan’s heels as they went through 1km in 2:32 and the half-way point in 3:50, four seconds inside world best pace and seven in front of the chasing pack.

Mottram left it late, but when he kicked for the line as the pair emerged from under Newcastle’s Tyne Bridge for the second time, Kipchoge had no answer. Mottram’s finishing time obliterated the 16-year-old world best of 7:49 set by Morocco’s Brahim Boutayeb in Helsinki back in 1990, while Kipchoge, with 7:43.1, was also well inside the old mark. Spain’s Ivan Hierro was third in 7:54.0.

“He finished his track season early so I knew the only way he was going to beat me was to run from the front,” said Mottram. “He ran 7:50 to beat me last year and I knew he would have to run better than that to get me again.

“I really wanted to finish on a high note after my great race two weeks ago, and this was perfect.”

Mottram’s season isn’t quite finished, however. The Australian revealed he will jog tomorrow’s Great North Run wearing a Sunderland Football Club shirt in honour of their manager Roy Keane and to raise money for a British charity.

“I expect I’ll do it in about an hour and a half,” he joked. “It’ll be fun.”

Fighting off cramps, strong solo effort by Defar

There was little fun in Defar’s effort this afternoon, however. The Ethiopian had to overcome crippling stomach cramps and the lack of any serious opposition to break the old world best of 8:53 set by Germany’s Luminita Zaituc in 2001.

She set off hard from the start, leaving Shobukhova, the World indoor 3000m record holder, and the rest of the international field in her wake. She completed the first of the two-lap course in 4:26, six seconds ahead of her closest challenger, and passed 2km in 5:54 with a lead of more than 100m.

She crashed through the finish line and into the arms of her manager before sinking to the curbside clutching her abdomen.

“That was very hard,” she said later once the pain had subsided. “I had awful stomach cramps and no competition, so it was very difficult. I thought Liliya was going to be more competitive.”

Shobukhova crossed the line in 9:07.9 with Elouise Wellings completing a good afternoon for Austalians by finishing third in 9:11.1.

British sweep in the Mile

It was also a good afternoon for two of Britain’s emerging distance runners as Becky Lyne, the European 800m bronze medallist, beat Tatyana Golovchenko of Ukraine to win the women’s David Lloyd Leisure Great North Mile in 4:40.3, and Mo Farah, the European 5000m silver medallist, took the men’s mile from Ukraine’s Ivan Heshko in 4:05.5 after a photo finish. Kenya’s Alex Kipchirchir, the early race leader, was third just 0.3s behind.

“It’s a dream end to a dream season,” said Lyne, who has emerged as world class sub-two minute 800m runner this summer. “The whole year’s been unreal.

“Today I realised I was running with number one on my vest, so I thought there’s no way I am going to let anyone beat me.”

Farah showed similar determination to come from behind to snatch the victory from Heshko with a dip on the line.

“It’s my last race of the year and I wanted to win to round off my season,” said the 23-year-old who moved to second on the British 5000m all-time list earlier this summer. “I saw a little gap and I thought ‘Dig in, dig in’ and maybe I will get him. He’s a class athlete and it’s great to end the season on a high.”

It was a sentiment echoed by all the afternoon’s victors.

Matthew Brown for the IAAF