Joshua Cheptegei Breaks Bekele’s 15 Year Old 10,000 Meter World Record

Ugandan athlete and 10,000m world champion, Joshua Cheptegei has broken the 15-year-long standing world record in the 10,000m race by 6.6 seconds, in the NN Valencia WR Day in Spain.Therefore,Ugandan long distance runner Joshua Cheptegei is the new 10,000m world record holder.

The 24-year old clocked 26:11.00 to break the previous record set by Ethiopian and long distance legend Kenenisa Bekele at the Brussels’Memorial Van Damme ( Belgium) in August 2005 with a time of 26:17.53. .

This is the fourth record Joshua Cheptegei has broken in less than a year after first breaking the 10km road world record in Valencia in December which had stood for over 10 years .

Joshua Cheptegei also  went ahead for another record in February when he ran 12 minutes 51 seconds to break the 5km road world record in Monaco before returning to the same City in August to claim another of Bekele records, a 16-year-standing world record in the 5000m race  with a new mark of 12:35.36.

On the other hand, Ethiopian Letesenbet Gidey clocked 14 minutes 6.62 seconds to set a new 5000m women record. She bettered the 14mins 11.15 seconds set by her compatriot Tirunesh Dibaba in Oslo, Norway 2008. Both Cheptegei and Gidey had pacesetters during their historic runs in Valencia.