Monaco, July 27
With just a few days to go before the start of the athletics competitions in the Paris Olympic Games, World Athletics, the governing body for track and field competitions, has ratified several World Records set over the past seven months. These records include the Women's 400m hurdles record set by Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, the Women's 1500m mark of Faith Kipyegon, the pole vault world record by Mondo Duplantis and the men's discus throw record set by Mykolas Alekna.
Also ratified on the occasion were Kenyan Beatrice Chebet's Women's World 5km record (women-only), the Women's World 5km record (mixed) and 10m (mixed) records set by Agnes Jebet Ngetich of Kenya.
Chebet brought her 2023 season to a close in memorable fashion on December 31, winning over 5km on the roads in Barcelona in 14:13. The world cross-country champion took 16 seconds off the women-only world record set by Senbere Teferi in Herzogenaurach on September 12, 2021.
Two weeks later in Valencia, Chebet's fellow Kenyan Agnes Jebet Ngetich produced a similar stunning performance on the roads, clocking 28:46 over 10km in a mixed race. Her half-way split of 14:13 was also a world record.
Ngetich took 28 seconds off the previous world 10km record set by Yalemzerf Yehualaw in Castellon on February 27, 2022, while her 5km mark was a six-second improvement on Ejgayehu Taye's world record, set in Barcelona on December 31, 2021, the World Athletics informed on Saturday.
Mykolas Alekna turned heads at the start of the outdoor season earlier this year when he threw 74.35m to win the discus at the Oklahoma Throws Series World Invitational in Ramona. In doing so, the 21-year-old broke the long-standing world record set by East Germany's Jurgen Schult on June 6, 1986.
Just six days later, another men's field event world record fell, this time to Mondo Duplantis. The world and Olympic champion won the pole vault event at the Diamond League meeting in Xiamen (China) by clearing 6.24m, adding a centimetre to the record he set at the Diamond League Final in Eugene last year.
At the US Olympic Trials in June, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone clocked a world 400m hurdles record of 50.65 seconds, shaving 0.03 off the record she set when winning the world title on July 22, 2022. It was her fifth world record in the discipline and her fourth set at Eugene's Hayward Field.
Faith Kipyegon is another Olympic champion who recently improved on her own world record. The Kenyan middle-distance runner clocked 3:49.04 over 1500m at the Wanda Diamond League meeting in Paris, taking 0.07 off the record she set in Florence on June 2, 2023.
McLaughlin-Levrone, Duplantis, Kipyegon, Chebet and Alekna will all be in action at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.