BARCELONA, Spain, February 16- Following in the footsteps of Renaud Lavillenie and Genzebe Dibaba indoors on Saturday, the world records continued to tumble this weekend as Kenya’s Florence Kiplagat stopped the clock in 1:05:12 at the eDreams Mitja Marató de Barcelona on Sunday.
Kiplagat’s half marathon world record run * sliced 38 seconds off the previous mark of 1:05:10, which was set by her compatriot Mary Keitany at the 2011 RAK Half Marathon.
The 2010 IAAF World Half Marathon Championships gold medallist lead the race in the Catalan city from the start and actually finished fourth overall, beaten only by a trio of male runners.
She passed 10km in 31.08, which was actually more than a minute faster than her official personal best for the distance in a 10km race, and 15km in 46:35.
Her world record was more than a minute faster than she had ever run before over the distance, her previous best of 1:06:38 coming in the 2012 Rome-Ostia race.
Kiplagat won the 2013 Berlin Marathon in 2:21:13 last September and built on that base in order to launch her assault on the record, helped by almost perfect still conditions and a temperature hovering around 13 degrees Celsius.
“This is a not a day I will forget, I’m so happy! The circuit was very fast and I really want to thank my pace makers, Marc Roig and Stanley Siroro, they did a great job. I felt so well from the beginning and the weather was perfect, so I had the feeling that this could be a special day,” said the delighted Kiplagat.
The next woman was more than seven minutes in arrears, with Great Britain’s Nicola Duncan taking second place in 1:12:15.
Kipchoge completes Kenya’s great day
It was a Kenyan double victory in the Catalan city, which has witnessed world records in its Olympic stadium but never before on the roads, as former World 5000m champion Eliud Kipchoge won the men’s race in 1:00:52 and defended the title he won in Barcelona 12 months ago.
Kipchoge, and his compatriots Peter Emase and Laban Mutai, formed a leading group of three from the start and passed 5km in 14.32 and were still together at 10km, which was reached in 28.50.
Shortly afterwards, Kipchoge decided to make a move, which proved to be decisive and he left his countrymen behind, although he finished just adrift of his personal best time of 1:00:04 set at the same race in 2013.
Mutai was second in 1:01:19 and Emase third in 1:02:47. Almost 15,000 people contested the 24th edition of the race.
IAAF
* Subject to the usual ratification procedures
