Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, May 7: Indian runner Avinash Sable broke the 30-year-old men’s 5000m national record at the Sound Running Track Meet in San Juan Capistrano, California.
Sable, who owns the national record in his favourite event of 3000m steeplechase and competed in the Tokyo Olympics, finished 12th in the American Meet in 13 minutes and 25.65 seconds.
Bahadur Prasad’s long-standing record of 13:29.70s, set in Birmingham in 1992, was broken by the 27-year-old army soldier from a family in Maharashtra’s Beed district.
Jakob Ingebrigtsen of Norway, the Tokyo Olympics 1500m gold medalist, won the event in 13:02.03s.
The Sound Running Track Meet is a bronze-level World Athletics Continental Tour event.
Sable is noted for breaking his own national record in the 3000m steeplechase many times. With a time of 8:16.21s, he did it for the eighth time at the Indian Grand Prix 2 in Thiruvananthapuram in March.
During the Tokyo Olympics, he also set a national record of 8:18.12s. He has already qualified for the World Championships, which will be held from July 15 to 24 in Eugene, Oregon.
“We were planning Avinash to field in both 3000m steeplechase and 5000m in Asian Games as he has medal chance in both events,” Indian athletics chief coach Radhakrishnan Nair told PTI.
However, the Hangzhou Asian Games, which were supposed to take place from September 10 to 15, were postponed indefinitely on Friday due to an increase of COVID-19 cases in China.
