Athletics: Kenyan beats 13 year world 800m record

BERLIN - Kenyan David Rudisha broke the men's 800m world record that had stood for 13 years yesterday, clocking a time of 1min 41.09s at the ISTAF athletics meeting.

Rudisha bettered Dane Wilson Kipketer's 1:41.11 in 1997 in Cologne.

Rudisha set the record at one of athletics' most iconic venues, the deep blue track of Berlin's Olympic stadium, site of last year's world athletics championships.

"This was my first real attempt to break the world record. I knew I was good, I had trained very hard," Rudisha said.

"Now that I have run that time, I can say I have the ability to improve and go faster."

Rudisha said it made up for his surprise semifinal exit at the same stadium at the world championships last year.

The 21-year-old Kenyan retained the African championships title over the distance last month in the fastest time run in his athletics-mad country, proving he was a force to be reckoned with this season.

He is the son of Daniel Rudisha, a member of the 4x400m Olympics silver-winning relay team in Mexico City in 1968.

The Berlin meeting is not part of the top-tier Diamond League season.

* New Zealand's Olympic champion Valerie Adams had a win at a small meet in Slovakia yesterday.

Adams threw 20.37m, her best effort for some time, to beat a field that didn't include her arch rival Nadezhda Ostapchuk of Belarus.

After a couple of early foul throws, Adams improved with each effort at Dubnica nad Vahom, bettering 20m twice as she headed off Cleopatra Borel-Brown of Trinidad and Tobago (19.30m best) and Natalia Duco of Chile (17.67m).

Adams' performance came three days after she threw a best of 20.02m in the Diamond League meet at Zurich, second behind the 20.63m of Ostapchuk, the seventh time the Belarussian had her measure this year.

The pair will meet again at the Continental Cup in Split, Croatia, on September 4-5.

- Agencies