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Tegla Loroupe runs 30 k world record on the track

Her sixth world record

2003-06-09

Karolina Szabos 30,000 metres track world record was one of the oldest in athletics. The Hungarian had run 1:47:05,6 in Budapest on 22nd April 1988. Now it is beaten after 15 years: At a meeting in Warstein Tegla Loroupe ran 1:45:50 for the distance, achieving her goal to run the sixth world record of her career. The Kenyan now holds the track world records for 20,000 metres, 25,000 metres, 30,000 metres and the hour. In 1998 and 1999 she had run two marathon world records. Of course one has to take into account that long distance races on the track are rare.

In a race with four competitors of which, according to Tegla Loroupes manager, three finished, Tegla Loroupe was paced by her training compatriot Irene Jerotich (Kenya). “But as Irene was partly not fast enough Tegla also did some pacing work herself“, Volker Wagner reported. It was only until 16,000 metres that Jerotich matched the speed. The Kenyan then dropped out and Tegla Loroupe was on her own. At an hour she had run an estimated 16,200 metres. Before she had passed 5,000 metres in 17:36 and 10,000 in 35:11 minutes together with Jerotich. When Loroupe was on her own she slightly slowed and reached 20,000 metres in 1:10:41. She was timed 1:28:22 after 25,000 metres, but all split times are inofficial.

“Due to a cold I had some problems already at around 15 k“, Tegla Loroupe, who was cheered on by about 1,000 spectators, said. In addition to the cold she had suffered of diarrhoea the night before. “But when the race went on it was getting better again and I found back into my rhythm“, Loroupe said, who was able to slightly increase her speed for the last 5,000 metres. Originally she had planned to break not just the world record for 30,000 metres but also her own world record marks for one hour (18,340 metres/1998), 20,000 metres (1:05:26,6/2000) and 25,000 m (1:27:05/2002) in this race. But due to the health problems she decided to just concentrate on the one missing in her collection. Tegla Loroupe had also run two marathon world best times in 1998 (2:20:47) and 1999 (2:20:43).

Instead of an appearance money or a world record bonus Tegla Loroupe had asked the organizers to donate money for a school which is to be founded in Kapenguria, the main town of the province where Tegla Loroupe comes from. Nearly 5,000 Euros were collected in Warstein for the school which will be called “Tegla Loroupe Academy“.

Tegla Loroupes next goal is to qualify for the IAAF World Championships in Paris for either 10,000 metres or 5,000. She will run the 5,000 metres at the IAAF Golden League Meetings in Oslo on 27th June and two weeks later in Rome. It is not yet decided if she will run the 3,000 m in Paris in between. “But its difficult to find a good 10,000 metre race in which Tegla could beat the qualification time of 31:45 minutes set by the Kenyan federation“, Volker Wagner said.