BYDGOSZCZ, Poland, 21 June 2004 — Britain’s Paula Radcliffe recorded the third fastest women’s time in history at 5,000 meters in her first track race for nearly two years here at the European Cup meeting yesterday.
Radcliffe quickly pulled away from the rest of the field and ran almost the entire race alone before crossing the line in 14min 29.11sec, four and a half seconds slower than the world record of 14:24.68 set by Ethiopian-born Turk Elvan Abeylegesse in Bergen earlier this month.
The only other woman to have run faster than Radcliffe is Jiang Bo of China, who clocked 14:28.09 in 1997. Radcliffe was however disappointed that she had fallen off world record pace having been on course until the final few laps.
Russia won the women’s competition and Germany took the men’s title thanks to victory in the final event, the men’s 4x400m relay.
Yelena Slesarenko marked herself out as a major challenger for Olympic gold in the high jump when she cleared 2.04 meters, the best performance in the world this year.
Christian Malcolm was a rare men’s winner for Britain on the second day of competition when he took the 200m in 20.56sec while world triple jump champion Christian Olsson easily won the triple jump with a leap of 17.30m.
In the European Cup first division match in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, Olympic 200m champion Kostantinos Kenteris made a rare appearance outside of his native Greece and won his event in 20.33sec to prove he is in good condition just seven weeks away from the Athens Olympics.
Ivet Lalova, the little-known Bulgarian sprinter who the previous day had won the 100m in 10.77sec — the fastest women’s time in the event since 2000 — completed a sprint double by winning the 200m in 22.58sec.
