Sport Athletics
At the Liévin meeting, the 21-year-old Olympic champion lowered the record to 3 minutes 30 seconds 60, surpassing that of the Ethiopian Samuel Tefera.
He impressed at the Tokyo Olympics (OG) this summer. The Norwegian prodigy Jakob Ingebrigtsen established, Thursday, February 17, at the Liévin meeting (Pas-de-Calais), the best time of all time over 1,500 m indoors in 3 minutes 30 seconds 60.
The 21-year-old Olympic champion erased the Ethiopian Samuel Tefera from the shelves (3 minutes 31 seconds 4 in February 2019), also aligned in this unmissable event of the winter season. Tefera held on until the last 250 meters before Ingebrigtsen broke away to claim the first world record of his career, helped by the light guidance at the edge of the track.
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This year 2022, marked by the Worlds of Eugene (Oregon) in the United States (from July 15 to 24), therefore starts with a bang for Ingebrigtsen, who could very well threaten the outdoor time of Moroccan legend Hicham this summer. El Guerrouj (3 minutes 26 seconds), twenty-four years old.
The Norwegian, who made a name for himself in 2018 by achieving the 1,500m-5,000m double at the Euro in Berlin at just 18 years old, thus pushes the limits of his discipline with each outing. And the season has only just begun.
“I basically wanted to do the best time possible, but breaking a world record is a dream come true, so I'm very happy. It's my first. So I will remember this evening for a very long time and I hope that, in the future, I will beat others, ”launched the Norwegian, who risks being untouchable at the Indoor World Championships, from 18 to 20 March in Belgrade.
No other records in Liévin
The other times of the meeting were not up to the breathtaking performance of Ingebrigtsen. On 60 m, the Olympic champion Marcell Jacobs logically won in 6 seconds 50, which left him hungry. “I'm a little disappointed with the time, I still need more practice, but I feel that I still have some under the sole. I'm happy despite everything to have won, ”said the Italian, who is trying to take advantage of the indoor competitions to work on his action for the big summer deadlines.
The 60m hurdles was largely dominated by Grant Holloway. The American, beaten at the Tokyo Olympics (2nd) whom he had nevertheless approached in the shoes of the 2nd performer in history over 110 m hurdles (12 seconds 81), won in 7 seconds 35, six hundredths of his world record (7 seconds 29).
Holloway will be almost impossible to pick up at the Indoor Worlds, but the Frenchman Pascal Martinot-Lagarde, 2nd in Liévin (7 seconds 46), is gaining momentum and will be a serious candidate for the podium as usual.
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