Yomi Omogbeja (27/08/2005)

Kenya's Samuel Wanjiru has smashed the world junior 10,000m record.

On a marvellous night at the 29th Memorial Van Damme meeting – IAAF/TDK Golden League – in Brussels' Stade Roi Baudouin, Wanjiru, finishing third with 26:41.75, demolished the World Junior record held by Uganda's Boniface Kiprop (27:04.00 - Brussels 2004) by an amazing 23.25 secs.

The 18-year-old Kenyan had this year won the 40th Chiba Cross Country race in February and the Fukuoka - IAAF permit - Cross Country meeting at the distance of 10Km in 29:20 last March.

The remarkable race featured six runners finishing under 27 minutes, with seventh placed Olympic bronze medallist Zersenay Tadesse (27:04.70) setting an Eritrean national record.

The world 10,000m champion Kenenisa Bekele of Ethiopia won the race in a world record time of 26:17.53, slicing nearly 3 seconds off his previous best time (26:20.31) set at the Golden Spike Super Grand Prix in Ostrava last year.

Wanjiru has recently graduated from a high school in Japan and now runs for the Toyota Kyushu track team coached by Koichi Morishita, the 1992 Olympic Marathon silver medallist.

"This WJR is a result of hard training, very hard training," he said.

"I ran my former world junior record in Japan: 27:08. This was my first race in Europe and I win by almost 26 seconds.

"This progression is the result of hard work: but I want to be like Bekele: I try to do like Bekele."

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