Uganda: Cheptegei after another Bekele record in October

09/05/2020 Sports, World



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Just a month ago, Joshua Cheptegei stunned the world by breaking the 16-year-old 5000-meter (WR) world record of Ethiopian legend Kenenisa Bekele in style in the Monaco Diamond League.

Just 20 days after posting 12 minutes, 35.36 seconds, the Ugandan long-distance runner and its Dutch management Global Sports Communication (GSC) announced on Thursday that it will attempt to run a fourth consecutive WR next month.

GSC’s elite long-distance franchise NN Running Team released a short 44-second video indicating that Cheptegei will attempt to break Bekele’s 10,000-meter world record on October 7 in Valencia, Spain.

“When there are not many runs, we aim for the highest. Joshua Cheptegei is going for the 10,000 meter world record!” read the tweet from NN Running.

The 25-lap race will headline the NN Valencia World Record Day event at the Turia Stadium.

“I am very happy to announce that on October 7 I will go for the world record of 10,000 meters,” Cheptegei would later publish.

Bekele recorded the 10,000m WR in a time of 26 min, 17.53 seconds at the Brussels Memorial Van Damme in Belgium on August 26, 2005.

Ugandan Boniface Kiprop came second in that race with a time of 26 minutes, 39.77 seconds, which remains the country’s national record.

Cheptegei’s personal best (PB) at this distance is 26: 48.36, which he scored en route to winning the World Championship in Doha, Qatar, last year.

Not too early

The only man who came closest to Bekele’s WR in 15 years is Kenyan Micah Kogo with 26 minutes 35.63 seconds on August 25, 2006. However, Cheptegei’s PB is almost 30 seconds adrift.

And Bekele had run the previous 5000m WR mark some 15 months earlier in Hengelo, the Netherlands, on May 31, 2004.

So isn’t it too early to look for another WR?

“Not at all,” Cheptegei’s manager Jurrie van der Velden told this newspaper. “This is the right time.

“That’s what people thought going down from 12.57.41 to break the 5000m WR of 12.37 and ran 12.35 (in Monaco).”

And ten days later, Cheptegei will continue to be in Valencia to make his debut in the 21 km race at the World Half Marathon Championship.

“We are here to write history. And we are known to do things differently and so far it has paid off,” added the Dutchman.

On the other hand, Cheptegei is a man in the form represented by his last five races. He posted the 10K WR on December 10 in Valencia, did the 5K WR on February 16 in Monaco before returning there on August 14.