At the Lausanne Diamond League, Olympic champion Emmanuel Wanyonyi of Kenya came extremely close to breaking the men’s 800-metre world record. He finished with the second-fastest time in history, missing the global mark by two-tenths of a second.
The 20-year-old athlete finished with a time of one minute 41.11 seconds, just missing the world record of 1:40.91 set by David Rudisha of Kenya during the 2012 London Games. The young Kenyan raced the green lights fiercely in the inner lane, matching Wilson Kipketer’s 1997 mark as the second-fastest run ever and narrowly missing Rudisha’s record.
With this, Wanyonyi declared: “I’m so happy to have run the world lead (quickest time this season). I really loved the crowd, and I hope for the best in Silesia.”
In other news, two weeks after American Cole Hocker startled the world by winning gold in the Olympics in Paris, Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen took a little measure of revenge by winning the men’s 1,500-metre in 3:27.83.
He admitted: “It’s been almost two weeks since Paris so there was plenty of time to recover… A lot of it has been mental, including going home, taking some easy days and then getting back to work.”
Moreover, it has been a significant adjustment for Hocker, who stunned many by cutting three seconds off his personal best time to win the Olympic gold medal. The athlete remarked: “Considering the overwhelming past two weeks, it was a solid race… Physically I felt comfortable, but mentally, it’s a new challenge being announced as Olympic champion.”
Source: CNA