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Ethiopian runner misses 5K world record by 1 second

Yomif Kejelcha ran 12:50 in Lille, France, just off his compatriot Berihu Aregawi's 12:49 best

Kejelcha Photo by: Kevin Morris

Ethiopia’s Yomif Kejelcha ran an incredible 12:50 5K in Lille, France, on Sunday, finishing one second off the world record. Going into the race, Kejelcha owned the third-fastest 5K time in history with a 12:53 PB, and by the time he broke the tape in Lille, he had climbed to the second-fastest of all time. He now sits behind only his fellow Ethiopian Berihu Aregawi, whose 12:49 PB has been the world record since Dec. 2021. 

Kejelcha is a two-time world indoor champion in the 3,000m, and in 2019 he set the indoor mile world record with an amazing 3:47.01 run in Boston. Later that year at the Doha world championships, he won a silver medal in the 10,000m. Kejelcha has proven on many occasions that he has what it takes to contend with the world’s (and history’s) best, and Sunday’s run in Lille was just another example. 
 
He started the race with a group of nine other runners and stuck with them for the first couple of kilometres. They passed through the first kilometre in a blazing 2:32, at which point they accelerated and charged to a 2K split of just under five minutes. It was at this point that Kejelcha made the decision to drop his fellow leaders and power ahead for a shot at the world record. 
 
He passed through 3K in 7:40, seven seconds ahead of the next-closest runners, and by 4K, the clock read 10:16. That gave Kejelcha just over two and a half minutes to make it to the line if he wanted to beat Aregawi’s world record. Despite an impressive effort in that closing kilometre, Kejelcha fell just short of the 5K best once again, stopping the clock for an agonizingly close 12:50 result. Kejelcha’s run coincidentally comes just a week after Aregawi had a similar result in a 10K race in Spain, where he missed the world record by nine seconds. 
 
Kenya’s Reynold Kipkorir Cheruiyot finished in second place in a PB of 13:04 and Kejelcha’s compatriot Telahun Haile Bekele rounded out the podium in third with a final time of 13:07. 
 
Full results from Lille can be found here

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