Yomi Omogbeja (16/06/2007)

Ethiopia's Olympic champion Meseret Defar has once again smashed the World 5000m record at the ExxonMobil Bislett Games, the 1st IAAF Golden League meeting in Oslo.

Defar slashed her existing mark(14:24.53 set in New York, 3 June 2006) by almost eight seconds to finish in a stunning 14:16.63.

The 23-year-old paced the 2000 metres in 5:42:60, then picked up speed after the pacesetters dropped off to a roaring applause from the crowd.

Kenyan Vivian Cheruiyot also dipped under the old World record, securing second place in a national record time of 14:22.51, whilst Prisca Jepleting and Ejegayegu Dibaba finished third and fourth in 14:44.51 and 14:45.22 respectively.

Click to watch the last lap below:

Defar said after the race: "I didn’t think I would break the record by such a big margin, but I was aiming under 14:20. So I think I did a good job.

"During my training I knew I was on my top level. And while I was running tonight I knew that I was going for the World record.

"I was ready for this. And when I was running, I knew that I would get it."

"Last year I ran 14:24 and this year I ran 14:16. So I think if I do even better training, I can go beyond that," she added.

Many records

Defar, who is already the fastest woman ever over 5000m (5K) on the road (14:46), also rewrote the African record last August at the 29th Van Damme Memorial - IAAF/TDK Golden League meeting in Brussels where she won in 14:28.98, relegating compatriot's Berhane Adere's 14:29:32 mark to the history books.

She came very close to breaking the women's 3000m World Indoor record which she narrowly missed last year, running 8:30.94 to post the third-fastest time in history at the 2006 Reebok Boston Indoor Games in January.

However, a month later on 3rd February, she did broke the 3000m record with a 8:23.72 clocking at the 21st edition of the Sparkassen Cup at the Stuttgart’s Hanns-Martin-Schleyer-Halle in Germany.

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