Gudaf Tsegay, the Ethiopian runner, made up for her disappointing performance last Thursday in Lievin, France, where she failed to break the 3,000 meters world record. This Sunday, in Torun, Poland, she signed the second-best brand of all time in the 1,500 meters indoors with a time of 3:53.92 minutes. That’s just 83 hundredths of a second off her own universal record of 3:53.09, which she set back in February 2021.
It’s worth noting that no one, except Tsegay herself, has managed to beat the 3:54-minute barrier throughout history. She’s the current world champion of 10,000 meters and a bronze medalist in the 5,000 meters at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. This Sunday, she showed her superiority at the Torun meeting, the eighth stage of the world gold circuit on a covered track, where she left her closest competitor, compatriot Birke Haylom, almost six seconds behind with a mark of 3:59.82.
Further back, the third-place finisher, Ethiopian Worknesh Mesele, who came sixth in the 800 final at the last Olympic Games in Paris, completed the podium with a record of 4:02.19 minutes.
Furlani defeats Tentoglou for the first time
Meanwhile, young Italian jumper Mattia Furlani, who’s just 20 years old and a bronze medalist at the Paris Games, presented his gold candidacy in the Europeans on the covered track. He achieved this by signing the best world brand of the year in length with an attempt of 8.37 meters. That’s 14 centimeters more than the previous best registration of the course, which was 8.23 meters, set by Swedish Thobias Montler on January 29 in Belgrade.
Furlani’s leap allowed him to defeat the Greek Miltiadis Tentoglou, the great dominator of the specialty, for the first time. Tentoglou had to settle for second place with a record of 8.03 meters. Furlani, who’s the current runner-up from Europe outdoors and the world on the covered track, stayed just one centimeter off his best personal brand of 8.38 meters, which he jumped in the Europeans of Rome 2024. Before this, he had lost to Tentoglou in all 13 of their previous meetings.
Norway’s Henriette Jaeger, the World Champion of the Year and a finalist at the Paris Olympic Games, won the 400 meters with a time of 50.44 seconds. Jaeger, who’s just 21 years old, reduced the previous best registration of the course by 32 hundredths, which was 50.76, set by Dutch Lieke Klaver on February 13 at the Lievin meeting.