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The year of off-distance racing: unique records broken in 2020

There have been many area and world records broken in 2020 in events we don't normally see elites racing

Runners at a Marathon

When races slowly started to return at the start of the summer, many events held seldom-contested races, such as 2,000m and 150m runs. As more races popped up around the world, events that track fans are more familiar with, like the 5,000m, began to reclaim their spots on race programs, but some of these rare distances and events remained. With all of these runs, 2020 has become the year of off-distance racing, and because of this, we’ve seen some big records in several uncommon events. There’s still a lot of time left before the end of the year, but here are the world and area records we’ve seen so far in these unique races. 

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300m hurdles 

Norway’s Karsten Warholm is the two-time defending world champion in the 400m hurdles, and he recently ran the second-fastest time ever recorded in the event at the Stockholm Diamond League. Two months before his 400mH PB in Sweden, Warholm competed on home turf in neighbouring Norway in the 300m hurdles at the Impossible Games. This was one of the first in-person track meets to be held following the global lockdowns caused by COVID-19, and it was a replacement for the Oslo Diamond League event. In front of a virtually empty stadium, Warholm ran alone on the track and beat the 300mH world record by 0.70 seconds, crossing the line in 33.78. 

RELATED: Records fall for Warholm, Ingebrigtsens at Oslo’s Impossible Games

2,000m races 

Also on the Impossible Games program was a 2,000m race featuring Norwegians Jakob, Henrik and Filip Ingebrigtsen and Kenyan 1,500m world champions Timothy Cheruiyot and Elijah Manangoi. Running in separate cities at the same time (the Ingebrigtsens ran in Oslo and Cheruiyot and Manangoi raced in Nairobi), the two fields ran five laps of the track. The Ingebrigtsens were shooting for the European 2,000m record, and it was ultimately Jakob who won it, running 4:50.01 to beat the previous record by a full second. Earlier in the night, Filip also ran a 2:16.46 1,000m to beat the 24-year-old Norwegian record for the event. 

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A 25,000m run

Norway’s Sondre Nordstad Moen closed the night at the Impossible Games with yet another off-distance event when he ran a 25,000m European record. Already the owner of national records in the 10,000m, half-marathon and full marathon, Moen added to his resume with a 1:12:46.5 finish in the 25,000m, beating the previous European record of 1:13:57.6. Moen also set the European one-hour record in August after he ran 2,1131m in 60 minutes, but it ultimately didn’t count because he wore Nike’s NEXT% shoes, which made it unofficial due to the new World Athletics shoe rules.

One-hour runs 

One-hour records that did count were run by Mo Farah and Sifan Hassan, both of whom broke set world records for the event at the Brussels Diamond League. Haile Gebrselassie‘s 2007 record of 21.285K was the distance to beat, and Farah eked out a new world record, surpassing the mark by 45 metres for a total distance of 21.330K. Hassan handled the women’s mark with much more ease than Farah did on the men’s side, beating Dire Tune‘s 12-year-old record by 413 metres for a final distance of 18.930K. 

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4 x 1,500m

At a Bowerman Track club intra-squad meet in August, the team’s women set the  4 x 1,500m relay world record with a time of 16:27.02. Colleen Quigley, Elise Cranny, Karissa Schweizer, and Shelby Houlihan made up the record-breaking team, and the foursome beat the previous best by six seconds. The women averaged 4:06 per 1,500m leg to break the record. There was also a men’s relay, and although they couldn’t beat the world record, the team — anchored by Lopez Lomong — ran an American record of 14:34.97. 

 

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