Athletics: Bekele rewrites history books, again

Ethiopian running phenomenon Kenenisa Bekele destroyed the men's 10,000m world record yesterday. The 23-year-old Ethiopian - the world champion and existing record-holder - ran 26:17.53s to break his old record of 26:20.31 set in Ostrava in June 2004.

The Olympic and two-time world 10,000m champion, whose year began tragically when his fiancee died of a suspected heart attack, became the fourth athlete to break the mark in Belgium, joining Emile Zatopek, Paul Tergat and Salah Hissou.

By the time the first of the pacemakers dropped out at 2000m, they were on course to break it by a second. However, after a less than impressive performance by the second hare, Martin Keino, who managed just 300m in the lead before dropping out, the onus was on Bekele's younger brother Tariku. At 5000m, they were five seconds ahead of schedule.

The older Bekele, though, carried on his remorseless progress towards the record, holding the five-second advance at 7000m.

With five laps remaining, the advantage was down to four seconds as he valiantly tried to do it all on his own. But Bekele had judged it brilliantly and wrote a new chapter in his extraordinary story.

- NZPA