BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Britain’s multiple world and Olympic champion Mo Farah ended a three-year absence from the track in style on Friday when he broke the world record for the one hour run at the Brussels Diamond League athletics meeting.
The 37-year-old ran 21,330 metres — just over 53 laps — to beat Ethiopian Haile Gebrselassie’s previous record, set in Ostrava 13 years ago, by 45 metres to claim the first world record outdoors of his remarkable career.
Farah was locked in a duel with Belgium’s Bashir Abdi for most of the race but powered away during the final minute and was so full of running that he did not realise the race had ended and kept on for at least another 20 seconds.
“I’m very happy… we worked together, what an amazing way to do it and show the people what is possible,” said Farah.
“I feel tired — in the middle part we had to work hard, it’s nice to break a world record.”
Farah retired from the track in August 2017 to concentrate on road running.
The rarely-run one-hour race took place without spectators due to novel coronavirus restrictions although there was simulated crowd noise in the stadium to help the runners.
(Writing by Brian Homewood; Editing by Ken Ferris)
