Another of the milestones in the career of one of the greatest distance runners of all-time fell this evening, when Uganda’s Boniface Kiprop wiped the ‘Emperor’s' World Junior Championships record from the books when he set the new standard with an amazing run here in Grosseto. Gebrselassie set the previous championships record of 28.03.99 in 1992 in Seoul.
Kiprop took command of this race after the field had gone through 2000 metres (5:45.93 Jean Pierre Mvuyekure, RWA) and held the front position for the rest of the race to finish in a new Championships record time of 28:03.77. Tanzania’s Fabiano Joseph who had opened the race with an initial 1000 metres in 2:52.10, took the silver medal. Joseph, who trains and lives in London with Kiprop when the two are competing in Europe closed the 50 metres gap between himself and the leader after 7000 metres of the race and moved up to run at Kiprop’s.
He challenged strongly as the pair came into the back straight off the bell, but it was Kiprop who won the final sprint for the line.
Third placed Ryuji Ono of Japan finished exactly 26 seconds behind Joseph in 28:30.45.
Jean Pierre Mvuyekure, who finally finished in 8th place set a new National Junior Record for Ruanda of 29:03.73.
See the results section for full splits.
