IAAF ratifies Mary Keitany's world record
What you need to know:
- Radcliffe’s record of 2:17:42 was set in 2005.
- Even though Radcliffe won the 2003 London Marathon in 2:15:25, but the time wasn’t ratified as a world record after she used male runners as pacesetters to the end.
Mary Keitany’s women’s marathon world record of 2 hours, 17 minutes and 01 seconds has been ratified by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF).
Keitany completed a hat-trick of victories at the London Marathon on April 23, breaking the 14-year record of 2:17:42 set by Briton Paula Radcliffe on the same course by 41 seconds.
Radcliffe’s record of 2:17:42 was set in 2005, and even though Radcliffe won the 2003 London Marathon in 2:15:25, but the time wasn’t ratified as a world record after she used male runners as pacesetters to the end.
It was Keitany’s third victory in London, having won in 2011 in 2:19:19 before defending the title in 2012 with the second fastest time in the history of marathon in 2:18:37, which was also a national record.
Keitany was simply in a class of her own as she led virtually from the start, cruising past the half mark in 1:06:54 to edge out former Olympic and World 10,000m champion Tirunesh Dibaba by 54 seconds.
En route to the world record, the 35-year-old Keitany also smashed the women’s 30km world record with a new time of 1:36:05, erasing her previous record of 1:39:11 set in 2011.
The IAAF also ratified the World Under-20 Indoor Record men's pole vault record set by Armand Duplantis from Sweden twice this year.
Duplantis broke the previous distance of 5.68m set by Raphael Holzdeppe from Germany at Halle on March 1, 2008 with a new distance of 5.72metres on February 4, this year before improving it to 5.75m eight days later at Baton Rouge in New York.
