Ethiopian Kejelcha misses indoor mile record by whisker

NEWYORK: Ethiopia’s Yomif Kejelcha, twice a world indoor 3,000m champion, missed the world indoor mile record by one-hundredth of a second on Saturday in a dominating victory at the Millrose Games.

The 21-year-old distance star captured the feature event in the 112th edition of the US indoor classic in 3mins 48.46secs, with Kenya’s Edward Cheserek a distant second in 3:53.29.

But Kejelcha fell agonizingly short of his target, the mile indoor world record of 3:48.45 set by Morocco’s Hicham El Guerrouj on February 12, 1997 at the Flanders indoor meet in Ghent, Belgium. Kejelcha was not the only African runner to settle for the second-fastest time in history at the meet. Kenya’s Michael Saruni ran the second-fastest indoor 800 meters in history, winning in 1:43.98.

Saruni’s effort was second only to the indoor world-record time of 1:42.67 set by Denmark’s Wilson Kipketer in Paris at the 1997 World Indoor Championships.