WORLD RECORD ALERT: Ethiopia’s Yalemzerf Yehualaw smashes 10K world record

Ethiopia’s Yalemzerf Yehualaw clocked an incredible 29:14 at the Castellón 10K in Spain this Sunday, beating Joyciline Jepkosgei’s already-ratified record of 29:43, as well as Bahrain’s Kalkidan Gezahegne’s yet-to-be ratified record of 29:38, set last year.

Ethiopia’s Yalemzerf Yehualaw was denied a half marathon world record twice in 2021: first by a short course in Antrim, then by Letesenbet Gidey in Valencia.

Today in Castellon, Spain, she finally gets her WR, smashing the women’s 10k road WR of 29:38 by 24 seconds. https://t.co/IP0KCB3ohl

— Jonathan Gault (@jgault13) February 27, 2022

This was a redemptive race for the rising star, who has missed out on a couple of world records recently for logistical reasons. In August 2021, she ran 1:03:44 for a half marathon in Ireland, but her record was unable to be ratified because the course was later found to be 54 metres short. In October 2021, only a couple of months later, she ran 1:03:51 at the Valencia half-marathon, which would have been a record, had it not been for Letesenbet Gidey, who won the race and set the new world record of 1:02:52.

In early January, Yehualaw was slotted to run the Valencia 10K, where she was planning a record attempt, but a positive COVID-19 test kept her off the start line. It wasn’t until Sunday that the pieces finally fell together for her, and once her result is ratified, she’ll officially have a world record to her name.

It was a beautiful day in Spain, with temperatures hovering around 12 C and no wind, and Yehualaw took advantage of the near-perfect conditions. She set a blistering pace, clocking 14:28 for 5K. Her pace slowed a bit in the second half (from running 2:52/km to her slowest kilometre, which was 3:00), but her closing kilometre made up some ground for her to break the tape in 29:14.

Behind her was Kenya’s Vicoty Chepngeno, who finished second in 30:14, and Mercy Cherono in third in 30:48.

“It was hard for me not to be able to compete in Valencia in January but I resumed my training and faced today’s race very optimistically,” Yehualaw told World Athletics. “I knew I had the world record in my legs and wanted to produce a challenging performance for any athletes who may attempt the record in the near future.”