On Saturday 16 August, Faith Kipyegon continued her historic season by narrowly missing the 3000m world record at the Silesia Diamond League meet in Chorzów, Poland. Kenya’s Kipyegon won the race in 8:07.04, which is less than a second off the existing world record of 8:06.11. This mark has stood for 32 years.
Billed as a world record attempt, America’s Sage Hurta-Klecker acted as pacemaker for the first 1200m of the race, before Australia’s Jessica Hull took over until 2000m.
The current world record was set by China’s Wang Junxia in 1993. It is one of the oldest and most controversial records in athletics due to Junxia’s association with ‘Ma’s Army’ – a training group that has been accused of being aided by performance-enhancing drugs under coach Ma Junren. In fact, a letter, written by Wang and signed by nine other athletes, surfaced in 2016, alleging that Wang and others were forced to take banned substances.
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Before Saturday’s Diamond League race, Beatrice Chebet, Kipyegon’s countrywoman, was the fastest woman in the 3000m behind Junxia, having clocked 8:11.56 at the Rabat Diamond League meet in May. Chebet went on to claim the 5000m world record at the Prefontaine Classic this July, becoming the first woman to break 14 minutes with 13:58.06.
Kipyegon is considered the greatest women’s 1500m runner of all time, having won three Olympic gold medals and three World Championships titles in the event. Most recently, at this year’s Prefontaine Classic, she broke her own 1500m world record when she covered the distance in 3:48.68, becoming the only woman in history to run faster than 3:50. She also ran the fastest-ever mile by a woman at the Breaking4 event in Paris this spring, achieving a time of 4:06.42. The official mile world record, 4:07.64, also belongs to Kipyegon.
Prior to Silesia, Kipyegon’s personal best over 3000m was 8:23.55, which she ran 11 years ago in 2014.
‘I am just going there to lower my personal best,’ Kipyegon told Kenya’s Mozzart Sport before the 3000m race. ‘That world record is tough. We are here to try. I say, “dare to try”. It is always better to dare to try than not to try, so I am going to Silesia to just lower my personal best and see if I will dare to try and if the world record is possible.’
