LONDON, 22 February 2004 — Ethiopia’s Kenenisa Bekele broke the 5,000 meters indoor world record and Marion Jones won her first indoor long jump event at a Grand Prix meeting held at Birmingham’s National Indoor Arena on Friday.
Bekele lit up the night as he beat the previous time of 12:50.38 set by compatriot Haile Gebrselassie at the same event in 1999. The 21-year-old made his mark when he beat his mentor to gold in the world outdoor 10,000 meters in Paris last year.
Triple Olympic champion Jones had a night of mixed fortunes as she was beaten into second place in the 60 meters by Belgian European Indoor champion Kim Gevaert, who won in 7.13 seconds against the American’s season’s best time of 7.16.
But Jones, who took last year off to give birth to a son fathered by world 100 meters record holder Tim Montgomery, won the long jump with a leap of 6.75 meters ahead of Spain’s Concepcion Montaner (6.35) and Britain’s Kelly Sotherton (6.23).
“With the sprints I’m pretty pleased. I worked on my starts and if it was 100 meters I’m pretty sure I’d have won the race,” said Jones, who returned to competition at the Millrose Games in New York this month.
Jones, making her first European appearance since 2002, won a bronze medal in her last long jump competition at the Sydney Olympics to add to her three golds and a silver. She had never jumped indoors before Friday.
“To start my first competition indoors with 6.75, I’m pleased with that,” she told the BBC. “Now I can go back to the drawing board at home and get ready for the outdoor season. I was pretty pleased with my runway approach in the long jump.”
Gebrselassie was hoping to sign off from his last indoor event in Britain by breaking his own world indoor record over two miles but had to settle for second place behind compatriot Markos Geneti, who took the lead on the back straight.
Gebrselassie, arguably the finest distance runner of his and any era, hoped to eclipse the record of 8:04.69 he set at last year’s Birmingham meet but was some way off that pace as he finished in 8:08.65 behind Geneti in 8:08.39. “It was too fast at the beginning and in between it was a little bit slow,” said Gebrselassie. Asked if he would run indoors in Birmingham again, he said: “This is my last. Let me try another thing. Let me go to the marathon.”
Bekele, the 2003 outdoor world 10000m champion, became only the third man to break 13 minutes for the indoor 5,000m.
“Today was very hard, it was a very difficult record to beat. Haile is my hero so it’s special that the record was his,” said the 21-year-old.
In the women’s 60m Gevaert, the reigning European indoor champion, capitalized on a superb start to hold off Jones and claim the most memorable scalp of her career in a time of 7.13sec. Jones clocked 7.16sec. That was some way off her personal best at the distance of 6.95sec.
Another American, Angela Daigle, finished third in 7.27sec, pushing Ukrainian Zhanna Block, the 2001 world champion at 100m, into fourth on her first outing of the season.
Kelly Holmes won the 1,000m but not before she clipped heels with her training partner Maria Mutola, which sent the Olympic and world 800m champion crashing to the floor.
“I’m pleased with the run but gutted that Maria fell. It would have been a good run-in as it’s the first time I have been in front of her for a while,” said Holmes who set a new European record time of 2:32.96s, almost a second inside the previous best of Ukrainian Inna Yevseyeva which has stood for 12 years.
Jason Gardener, favorite for the men’s 60m, failed to make it into the final after a slow start in his heat, while Olympic 200m champion Darren Campbell was disqualified in the final itself won by American Brian Lewis in 6.58sec. Dwight Phillips, the reigning world indoor champion, won the men’s long jump with a leap of 7.91 meters, comfortably ahead of young British hopeful Chris Tomlinson (7.72m).
