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Cheptegei smashes 5,000 metres world record at Monaco Diamond League

Athletics - Diamond League - Monaco - Stade Louis II, Monaco - August 14, 2020. Joshua Cheptegei celebrates after winning the men's 5000m and setting a new world record. [Pool via REUTERS/Valery Hache]

Joshua Cheptegei produced a brilliant display of solo running to break Kenenisa Bekele's 16-year-old 5,000 metres world record by almost two seconds as athletics returned with a bang at the Monaco Diamond League meeting on Friday.

Cheptegei, 23, had predicted a world record run in the big event of the season and duly delivered as he clocked 12 minutes, 35.36 seconds, destroying the 12:37.35 that Bekele set in the Netherlands in 2004.

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