Athletics: Ex-Whanganui runner Geordie Beamish smashes NZ 3000m record

Geordie Beamish shattered the NZ 3000m record at the Millrose Games in New York on February 12. Photo / Alisha Lovrich

Former Whanganui middle-distance runner Geordie Beamish has set a national 3000m record at the Millrose Games in New York.

Beamish finished sixth in the 3000m on Sunday, recording a time of 7m 36.22s to take 3.28s from the indoor New Zealand record he set at the same meeting last year. His mark was also quicker than Nick Willis’ national outdoor record of 7m 36.91s set in 2014 to ensure he banked the absolute New Zealand 3000m record.

It was another breakthrough run by the 26-year-old US-based athlete, who hails from Havelock North but who attended Whanganui Collegiate where his athletics career developed.

Great Britain’s Josh Kerr won the race in a meet record of 7m 33.47s with Swiss and Guatemalan records also registered in a high-class race chock full of PBs.

Sam Tanner, who won the mile event at Whanganui’s Cooks Classic in January with a personal best, further lowered his PB to finish fourth in the Wanamaker Mile at the Millrose Games.

Tanner ran a patient race for a time of 3m 51.70s and trimmed 1.15s from his most recent PB set in Boston just one week earlier. Willis holds the New Zealand Indoor mile record of 3m 51.06s recorded in New York in 2016.

The 22-year-old Athletics Tauranga athlete sat sixth or seventh for much of the race, before finishing strongly over the final two laps to sprint home and claim fourth behind race winner Yared Nuguse, who recorded a dazzling 3m 47.38s for a Wanamaker Mile race record and US national record time.