The Hauts-de-France Pas-de-Calais 2023 saw Ethiopia's Lamecha Girma setting the world record in the men's 3000 meters, while Karsten Warholm, Katie Moon and Femke Bol shattering the meeting records.
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The World Athletics’ Indoor Gold Tour fifth stop witnessed a lot of records being shattered in the meeting at Liévin. The Hauts-de-France Pas-de-Calais 2023 saw Ethiopia’s Lamecha Girma setting the world record in the men’s 3000 meters, while Karsten Warholm, Katie Moon and Femke Bol shattering the meeting records. Hurdler and two-time world champion Grant Holloway also registered a convincing win in France. We will now look at some of the important highlights from the World Athletics Indoor Gold Tour.
Lamecha Girma of Ethiopia shattered a 25-year-old indoor world record in the 3,000 meters at the World Indoor Gold Tour meeting on February 16, 2023. Girma had previously run the 3,000-meter steeplechase and won the silver medal at the Summer Olympics 2020 in Tokyo, ran the 3000 meters distance in 7 minutes and 23.81 seconds in Liévin. Kenya’s Daniel Komen had established the previous record in Budapest in 1998 with a timing of 7:24.90.
Reigning World and Olympic champion Armand Duplantis, popularly known as Mondo Duplantis, continues his record-breaking spree in the Lievin meeting in France. He clinched the victory with a leap of 6.01m that he cleared on his second attempt. Despite the victory, Duplantis was not very happy with the performance. Post his competition, he stated in an interview that he would deliver a much stronger performance in the future considering the higher bar the event has set over the years.
In his first race of the year, Olympic champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen of Norway ran a new world leading performance in the men’s 1500-meter event of 3:32.38. Ingebrigtsen came back to the track where he previously ran a 3:30.60 for the 1500m indoor world record. He was on top of the moon after winning the title that moved him past the 3:33.22 set by Yared Nuguse of the United States at the top of this year’s world list.
Keely Hodgkinson of Great Britain ran the 800 meters in a convincing victory in Lievin, France, setting a world record time in the process. The 20-year-old finished nearly three seconds ahead of the field, clocking one minute 57.71 seconds. Mary Moraa, the Commonwealth Games 2022 champion, finished second in 2:00.61. This indicated that the in-form Hodgkinson had improved upon her previous world-leading pace of 1:57.87 from her victory in the Copernicus Cup in Torun last week.
Karsten Warholm, a two-time world champion in the 400-meter hurdles race for the men and the Tokyo Olympics gold medalist, established a meeting record by winning in 45.51 seconds. Isayah Boers from the Netherlands and Dylan Borlee from Belgium placed second and third with times of 46.60 and 47.49, respectively.
Olympic 100-meter champion Marcell Jacobs of Italy was defeated by the Commonwealth Games gold medalist Ferdinand Omanyala, who ran in 6.54 seconds, instead of his 6.57 seconds. Marcell had to settle for the silver medal after coming up just 0.03 seconds short. With a time of 6.59, Arthur Cisse finished third.
Read more: World Athletics Indoor Tour Calendar 2023: LIVE Streaming, When and Where to Watch, Schedule
