At the Sound Running Track Meet in San Juan Capistrano, California, top Indian runner Avinash Sable broke the 30-year-old men’s 5000m national record.
Sable, who owns the national record in his favorite 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 modest family in Maharashtra’s Beed district.
Jakob Ingebrigtsen of Norway, the Tokyo Olympics 1500m gold medalist, won the event in 13:02.03s.
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 planned for Avinash to compete in both the 3000m steeplechase and the 5000m at the Asian Games since he has a gold chance in both,” Indian athletics chief coach Radhakrishnan Nair told PTI.
