Ethiopia’s Haile Gebrselassie sets the first world record
of 1998 in Karlsruhe
Ethiopia’s Haile Gebrselassie broke his own 3000m world record by 4.5 seconds at the
Karlsruhe 14.IHM indoor meeting yesterday, January 25.
The World 10,000m Champion clocked 7:26:14 to become the first athlete to enter the record
books in 1998.
Running alone for the second half of the race, 24 year-old Gebrselassie held his form
well; "I was very concentrated," he said after the race; " I knew what I
was capable of running and thought about 7:25 but the pacemaker dropped out a bit
early."
Gebrselassie set two world records at 10,000m and 5000m outdoors in 1997 - but they fell
to Paul Tergat and Daniel Komen respectively before the season ended. Not surprisingly,
Gebrselassie’s major ambition for 1998 is to get them back: "I am going to
concentrate, above all, on breaking world records this year. I want to improve on the
5000m mark just as much as the 10,000m," said the man who has won multiple World
Championship titles and is the reigning Olympic 10,000m champion.
While Gebrselassie has further ambitions indoors - he plans to attack the 1500m world
record at the Flanders Indoors in Ghent on Sunday February 8 - his great rival Komen will
race the 3000m at next weekend’s International Meeting in Stuttgart.
In other action from Karlsruhe, Anzhela Balachanova (UKR) and Ezsher Szemeredi (HUN) both
cleared 4.33 in the women’s pole vault - a new European record