Faith in Kipchoge methods, Kenyan eyes 3rd world mark

Kenyan women’s distance running star Faith Kipyegon is long used to extraordinary deeds on the track. Two Olympic golds and world titles each testify to that. Still, it was some hot streak in this buzzing Diamond League season as she took down two world records a week apart. The 29-year-old, in sensational form this season, will be gunning for a third world mark when she lines up for the rarely run mile race at the Monaco Diamond League on July 21.

- Avishek Roy

Kipyegon, the reigning Olympic and world 1,500m champion – she also won the 2016 Olympic and 2017 world titles in the event – put on some show on successive Fridays. She first bettered the seven-year-old 1,500m world mark, and the 5000m record fell the next week.

At the Florence Diamond League on June 2, she powered through to win the 1,500m in 3:49.11 secs, bettering the 3:50.07 set by Ethiopia’s Genzebe Dibaba in 2015. Last year, she had agonisingly missed it by 0.3 seconds in Monaco.

This year, there was more power and speed in her legs, making it look ridiculously easy. She ran the last 400m in 58.81 secs, the final 200m in 29.2 secs. Britain’s Laura Muir (3:57.09), Olympic silver-medallist behind her, was almost eight seconds adrift at second. The way her fellow runners mobbed her in celebration and then gathered for a group photograph underlined how popular her achievement was.

First in eight years