Meseret Defar comes close to World indoor 3000m record - Boston (© Victah Sailer)
Olympic 5000m champion Meseret Defar of Ethiopia will return to the Reggie Lewis Track and Athletic Center at Roxbury Community College for the sixth year, presumably in a bid to break the women’s World Indoor record for 3000m at the 12th Reebok Boston Indoor Games (27 Jan).
In the last two years Defar, 23, came very close to beating the then World mark of 8:29.15 which was by her compatriot Berhane Adere. In 2005 at the Boston meet she ran 8:30.05 and last year was a little further adrift with 8:30.94, though a few days later in Stuttgart, Germany she ran slightly faster (8:30.72). However, on 17 February 2006, Russia’s Liliya Shobukhova unexpectedly smashed Adere’s mark in Moscow taking it down to 8:27.86.
Of course, subsequently Defar has had her own World record success improving the 5000m outdoor record to 14:24.53 last summer at the Reebok Grand Prix in New York, an effort for which she was named by the International Athletics Foundation in Monaco as the female Performance of the Year for 2006.
The double World Indoor 3000m champion has a remarkable record at the Boston Indoor Games having taken four victories (3000m, 2003; 5000m, 2004; 3000m, 2005; 3000m, 2006) and one second place (Two Miles, 2002), and will run 3000m for the third consecutive year, this time taking on hometown favourite Shalane Flanagan, a 2004 Olympian and the 2005 USA Outdoor 5000m champion.
Olympic 100m Hurdles champion Joanna Hayes has also been added to the Boston line-up that already includes Tirunesh Dibaba, the World 5000m and 10,000m champion, Australian Pole vaulter Steve Hooker, American miler Alan Webb, and World Indoor Shot champion Reese Hoffa.
Barbara Huebner for the IAAF
