Kenya’s Faith Kipyegon just missed out on the long-standing world record in the women’s 3,000m at the Silesia Diamond League meet on Saturday.
Six weeks after improving her own world 1,500m record in Eugene, the three-time Olympic and four-time world gold medallist clocked 8min 07.04sec over the non-Olympic distance.
That fell just short of the 8:06.11 world record set by China’s Wang Junxia in 1993.
Kipyegon, who also holds the mile world record and is a former world record-holder in the 5000m, was led around the track by two pacesetters — American Sage Hurta-Klecker and Australian Jessica Hull, the Olympic silver medallist who ran a world record 5:19.70 for 2000m in Monaco last year.
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But Kipyegon had only raced the 3,000m twice before and her previous personal best of 8:23.55 was set in 2014.
After Hull pulled up with two-and-a-half laps to race, all eyes were on Kipyegon, but she left herself too much to do in the final lap and fell just short of what would have been a sixth world record at a Diamond League meet in the last three seasons.
The Kenyan came up short in her specially arranged attempt in June to become the first woman to smash through the four-minute barrier, clocking 4:06.42 in Paris.