ATAF Editors
Double Olympic champion Beatrice Chebet, the two-time Olympic gold medallist, ended her 2024 season triumphantly by setting a new 5km road race world record at the Cursa dels Nassos, a World Athletics Label event in Barcelona on new year’s eve.
The 24-year-old Kenyan athlete clocked an impressive time of 13:54, obliterating the previous record by 19 seconds.
The current world 5000m record-holder (14:05.92) became the first female to run the distance under 14 minutes on any terrain.
Latvia’s Dmitrijs Sergojins, pacing as Beatrice Chebet, started rapidly, completing the first kilometre in 2:46. Ethiopian runners Medina Eisa and Melknat Wudu, and Uganda’s Belinda Chemutai, followed closely at 2:50, maintaining a potential world record pace.
Chebet, the world 5000m champion and 10,000m record-holder, reached 2km in 5:35, well ahead of her previous year’s 14:13 time. By this point, Eisa had fallen 60 metres behind. After another swift 2:49 kilometre, Chebet hit 3km at 8:24, eight seconds ahead of the world record pace.
Post pacemaker withdrawal, Chebet accelerated, covering the fourth kilometre in 2:44, and with a final kilometre of 2:46, finished at 13:54, breaking the world record.
The previous women’s 5km world record for a mixed-gender race was 14:13 by Agnes Jebet, matching Chebet’s women-only event record.
Eisa finished second in 14:23, the fastest under-20 time ever, with Chemutai third, achieving a personal best of 14:36.
Selected results
Women
- Beatrice Chebet (KEN) 13:54
- Medina Eisa (ETH) 14:23
- Belinda Chemutai (UGA) 14:36
- Melknat Wudu (ETH) 14:53
- Jana Van Lent (BEL) 15:24
Men
- Matthew Kipkoech Kipruto (KEN) 13:28
- Pierrik Jocteur Monrozier (FRA) 13:28
- Abdessamad Oukhelfen (ESP) 13:30
- Victor Gabriel Ortiz (PUR) 13:33
- Bdar Jaafari (ITA) 13:41
