Jebet record sets Paris Diamond meet alight

K E NYA N- B ORN Ol y mpi c champion Ruth Jebet obliterated the 3000m steeplechase world record on Saturday as Dafne Schippers got back to winning ways in the 200m at the Paris Diamond League.

On a sultry Parisian evening, Jebet’s performance was the standout, the now-Bahraini having transferred allegiance to the Gulf state in February 2013 as a 16-year-old.

“I’m so happy. I’ve tried to beat the world record several times, but tonight we decided to push ourselves to go looking for a good time,” said Jebet, now 19. “The pacemaker was very strong. She was at the Games . . . I wasn’t expecting such a difference with the previous record,” Jebet said, adding that she would now wrap up her season.

Jebet clocked 8min 52.78sec, smashing the previous record of 8:58.81 achieved by Russian Gulnara Galkina at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Jebet, who now owns three of the four fastest times in history, won Olympic gold in Rio with 8:59.75, the second fastest time ever in the event, having also clocked 8:59.97 at the Eugene meet in the United States last May.

Only Galkina and Jebet have ever dipped below the nineminute mark in the event.

Jebet’s victory shone the light on what the IAAF has conceded is one of their most challenging problems: the transference of allegiance of athletes.

Ma ny d i st a nc e r u n ner s from east Africa now compete under the f lag of Gulf countries, while Morocco, Jamaica and Nigeria-born athletes are a lso seen to be r unning for ot her countries.

“We want to make stricter the rules on transfers of allegiance,” IAAF president Sebastian Coe said at the Stade de France, with Jebet saying she quit Kenya five years ago for “animal health” studies.

France’s IAAF Council member Bernard Amsalem has been charged with investigating the trade in athletes.

“We’l l go look i ng for t he athletes in mainly Kenya, but a l s o E t h i opi a , Mor o c c o, Ja maica a litt le bit and Nigeria increasingly for t he sprinters,” he said.

“Poor countries, in difficulty, it’s easier to turn an athlete of those countries by giving them a lot of money because it represents a lot compared to their daily wage.”

Jebet’s father gave the game away when she was honoured in Kenya for Olympic gold, thanking her for enabling him to buy a house and cattle.

Elsewhere on the track, Dutchwoman Schippers, silver medallist in the 200m at Rio, went one better by winning in 22.13sec ahead of Britain’s Desiree Henry (22.46, a new personal best) and American Jenna Prandini (22.48).