Kenyan smashes 13-year record
David Rudisha breaks men’s 800m record at Istaf athletics meet in German capital.
 |
| Rudisha celebrates after breaking Wilson Kipketer’s 1997 record in the 800 metres [AFP] |
Kenyan David Rudisha broke the men’s 800m world record as he clocked a time of one minute 41.09 seconds at the Istaf athletics meeting in Berlin.
Rudisha snatched the world record from Denmark’s Wilson Kipketer, who set a mark of 1.41.11 in 1997 in Cologne, Germany.
The Kenyan set the world record on Sunday at one of athletics’ most iconic venues, the deep blue track of Berlin’s Olympic stadium, site of last year’s world athletics championships.
The Berlin meeting is not part of the top tier Diamond League season.
The 21-year-old Kenyan retained the African Championships title over the distance last month in the fastest time ever run in the athletics-mad country, proving he was a force to be reckoned with this season.
He is the son of Daniel Rudisha, a member of the 4x400m Olympics silver-winning relay team in Mexico City in 1968.