OSLO, Norway — Hagos Gebrhiwet won the men’s 5,000 metres in the second fastest time in history with a sizzling final lap in the Oslo Diamond League meet at Bislett Stadium.
The 30-year-old, whose last major global medal on the track was bronze at the 2016 Rio Olympics, passed team mate Yomif Kejelcha with one lap remaining to cross in 12 minutes 36.73 seconds, clocking a blistering 54.99 seconds on his final lap.
“The time I achieved is very nice,” said Gebrhiwet, who narrowly missed Ugandan Joshua Cheptegei’s world record of 12:35.36.
“The conditions, the crowd was great and it was a very fast race, not easy for me but it was going very well.
“The race had some very nice guys running — my friend Kejelcha is a very good guy. I train alone and we did our own race but we are the same country so we are both happy,” Gebrhiwet added according to Reuters
Akani Simbine of South Africa sprinted to victory in the men’s 100m in 9.94 seconds, just off the season’s fastest time of 9.93 set by Americans Christian Miller and Kendal Williams.
Japan’s Abdul Hakim Sani Brown was second in 9.99 while Emmanuel Eseme of Cameroon ran 10.01 for third.
Olympic champion Lamont Marcell Jacobs was fourth in 10.03, while Britain’s Jeremiah Azu, who cracked the 10-second barrier for the first time in his career five days earlier, suffered an injury when leading mid-race and limped to the finish line.
American Brittany Brown won the women’s 200m, clocking 22.32 out of lane 8, while world champion Shericka Jackson’s early-season struggles continued.
Jamaica’s Jackson, the second fastest woman ever over the distance, finished fifth in 22.97, well off the 21.41 she clocked last season and slightly slower than her season-opener two weeks ago.
Britain’s Matthew Hudson-Smith won the men’s 400m in 44.07 — second fastest in the world this season — to break his own European record.
“The time didn’t matter in a way as I care about victories rather than times and preparing for the Olympics,” he said ahead of the Paris Games starting on July 26.
“At the end of the day times are temporary but medals are forever. I really want to come away from Paris with a medal,” added Hudson-Smith, who ran with his race bib upside down.
“I did not even realise my number was upside down tonight — maybe that will be my lucky charm going forward,” he said.
Georgia Griffith surged into the lead with 100m to go to win the women’s 3,000m, shaving a huge 13 seconds off her previous best time to cross in an Australian record 8:24.20.
“I’m quite new to 3000, I do a lot of 1500s so I usually die in the latter parts but today I kicked really well and finished strong,” Griffith said. “I got lucky. I really like this race but the 1500 is my main event.”
Kenya had been hoping the late world marathon record-holder Kelvin Kiptum could break the two-hour barrier at the Paris Olympics, the head of Kenyan athletics said, calling his tragic death “devastating”.
Kiptum, a 24-year-old father of two, was killed in a late-night car crash on February 11, just months after setting a new marathon record in Chicago with a time of 2:00:35.
The shock of his loss was felt worldwide, leaving sports fans thinking of the last great landmark in modern athletics and what might have been this August at the 2024 Games.
“He was a young man; he was just coming up; he was only 24; and he had just broken the world record. And so everybody was really devastated,” Athletics Kenya president Jackson Tuwei told AFP.
“What was so sad was that everybody was looking to him to do well in the Olympics and maybe lower the marathon record below two hours,” the national governing body chief said.
“Everybody was looking forward to having him in good shape so he could break another record.
“What we need to do now is to follow up and see how we can support the family.”
