London: World Athletics, the global governing body for track and field competitions, has ratified World records set this year by Ryan Crouser, Mondo Duplantis and Gudaf Tsegay, while also making official the world U20 record by Reynold Cheruiyot.
Crouser’s was the first of these recently ratified marks to be set, as he launched the shot 23.56m at the USATF Los Angeles Grand Prix, the season’s sixth World Athletics Continental Tour Gold meeting, on May 27.
With that performance, the world and Olympic champion added 19cm to the previous world record of 23.37m that he achieved at the US Olympic Trials in Eugene in June 2021.
The world record mark came in the fourth round and his series also included throws of 23.31m, 23.23m, 22.94m, 22.86m and 22.80m.
“I’m really excited because it didn’t feel polished,” Crouser explained. “It felt like I had a tonne of power, and I caught a big one,” he was quoted as saying by World Athletics.
The world records by Duplantis, Tsegay and Cheruiyot were all achieved at the Wanda Diamond League Final in Eugene on September 16-17.
First, Kenya’s world U20 1500m champion Cheruiyot clocked 3:48.06 to finish fifth in the Bowerman Mile, improving the world U20 mile record by more than a second. The previous record of 3:49.29 was set by Ilham Tanui Ozbilen in Oslo on July 3, 2009.
The race featured a host of fast times, including the winning mark of 3:43.73 by Jakob Ingebrigtsen, just 0.6 of a second off the senior world record.
The following day, Ethiopia’s Tsegay set the second senior world record of her career and her first outdoors, improving the world 5000m record with her remarkable 14:00.21 run.
That performance took almost five seconds off the previous world record of 14:05.20 that Faith Kipyegon set in Paris in June as part of a record spree that also saw her set global marks for the 1500m and mile.
“I was really angry to not bring back two medals from the World Championships, but I knew from our training I had a lot of potential to do something with my fitness,” said Tsegay. “Even though the conditions weren’t perfect (in Eugene), we thought we could do it.”
Duplantis also made history in Eugene. Back in the stadium where he broke the world record to win his first senior world title in 2022, the Swedish pole vault star set the seventh world record of his career, clearing 6.23m on his first attempt.
That mark is one centimetre higher than the world record height he achieved indoors in Clermont-Ferrand in February.
“The limit is very high, and I hope that I can continue to jump well and keep jumping higher than I did today,” said Duplantis. “But, for now, I’m not really thinking about anything except enjoying this moment and enjoying what I just did.”
(IANS)
