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Jakob Ingebrigtsen breaks Komen's 28-year 3,000m record but misses out on a comedic expired offer of a Mercedes Benz.
For 28 years, the record set by Kenya’s Daniel Komen for the outdoor 3,000 meters seemed as invincible as the fortress of solitude, standing strong at seven minutes, 20.67 seconds since that fateful day in September 1996 in Rieti, Italy.
The record fell on Sunday at the Diamond League meet in Sileia, Poland, when Norwegian prodigy Jakob Ingebrigtsen clocked a staggering 7:17.55, but he missed out on more than just applause.
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18:00 - 25.08.2024
Jakob Ingebrigtsen breaks Daniel Komen’s 3000m World Record in Silesia
Norwegian making up for flopping in 1500m at Paris Olympic.
Back in the day, Komen, confident that his record was as safe as a bank vault, made an extravagant offer: a brand new Mercedes Benz car and a parcel of land in Eldoret to any Kenyan who could break his record.
"I even challenged my competitors then, including Ethiopia’s legends Haile Gebrselassie and Kenenisa Bekele, among others, and I wanted to give them the prize, but no one came close," Komen revealed in 2023 when discussing his unbeatable feat as per Daily Nation.
However, in a twist that could be straight out of a sports comedy, Komen declared last year that the offer had officially expired.
“No one came close to what I had registered then. After 25 years, my offer has expired and it’s unfortunate that Kenyan athletes missed it,” he lamented, unknowingly setting the stage for today's dramatic near-miss.
Ingebrigtsen’s record-breaking run was as breathtaking as it was heartbreakingly ironic.
Had he been Kenyan, or had he broken the record a few years earlier, he might have driven back to Norway in a shiny new Mercedes, with land ownership papers in the glove compartment.
The image of the fleet-footed Viking cruising through Oslo in a car meant for the dusty trails of Eldoret adds a layer of humor and ‘what could have been’ to this already compelling narrative.
During the epochal race in 1996, Komen chose to run from the second lane, citing the track's trickiness and his fear of a tumble in the tighter first lane leading to a disqualification.
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18:34 - 25.08.2024
Jamaican youngster Ackera Nugent stuns Olympic champion Masai Russell to win women's 100m hurdles in Silesia
The 22-year-old Jamaican oozed class as she shattered the meeting record at the Diamond League Meeting in Silesia.
His careful planning and perhaps a dash of indoor track paranoia helped him secure the record that would stand unchallenged for nearly three decades.
Komen, who hung up his spikes in 2007, reminisced about the conditions that contributed to his success, including an unlikely choice in footwear.
“The world is changing and I know that with the new technology like the wave lights and the shoes, we are going to witness faster times which is also good for the sport," he mused.
He then revealed a quirky detail: "I managed to break the world record then because it was winter and I had trained well despite running with the wrong shoes. I used sprinters’ shoes because at the time, my management didn’t specialize in long-distance races. If I had the right ones, I would have even run faster but that is now gone and we now need to see who will run faster in the other races."
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18:16 - 25.08.2024
Femke Bol maintains hot post-Olympics form with dominant performance in Silesia
The world champion looked unstoppable in the 400m hurdles race at the Silesia Diamond League on Sunday.
Fast forward to today, and the irony could notbe thicker. Here was Ingebrigtsen, shattering the record with all the modern technological aids at his disposal, from state-of-the-art footwear to pacing lights, yet the legendary Mercedes Benz and a slice of Eldoret remained nothing more than a teasing mirage, just out of reach.
Meanwhile, Ethiopia's Berihu Aregawi and Yomif Kejelcha also put on a show, with Aregawi setting a new Ethiopian national record and Kejelcha clawing his way to third, but the talk of the town remained the phantom Mercedes.
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