Avinash Sable breaks 30-year-old national record in 5000m
Avinash Sable, India's best long-distance runner, shattered a 30-year-old record in the 5000m long-distance event at the Sound Running Track Meet in San Juan Capistrano, California. Sable finished 12th in the race in 13:25.65s, breaking Bahadur Prasad's record of 13:29.70s established in 1992.
The Sound Running Track Meet is a bronze-level World Athletics Continental Tour event. Jakob Ingebrigtsen of Norway, the Olympic 1500m champion from Tokyo, won the event in 13:02.03s, to take the gold medal on Friday. Meanwhile, Joshua Cheptegei of Uganda owns the men's 5000m world record, clocking 12:35.36 in Monaco in 2020.
Avinash Sable was competing in the 5000m for the first time. His first appearance in the event was last month in the Federation Cup in Kozhikode, where he took first place with a time of 13:39.43s. Sable, a Tokyo Olympian, presently owns the national record in three events at the age of 27. In Delhi in 2020, the Maharashtra native achieved a half-marathon record, and in the Indian Grand Prix in Thiruvananthapuram in March this year, he set a new 3000m steeplechase record.
Riding on a high, Sable is expected to better his own record in all the three events in the upcoming events this year.