Chimo Bayo's music thundered at the start of the 10K Valencia Ibercaja. “Because it's the bomb that's going to explode…” was heard over the speakers at the start of the race while the DJ from the old Ruta del Bakalao, a 'boomer' icon in Valencia, could not even suspect that 28 minutes and 46 Seconds later the bomb that was going to explode at the finish line of Paseo de la Alameda was the new world record for 10 kilometers. One woman, Agnes Ngetich, was crying with emotion because she had just become the first athlete in history to run 10,000 meters, both on track and asphalt, in less than 29 minutes. The Kenyan lowered the previous record, held by Ethiopian Yalemzerf Yehualaw (29m14s in Castellón, two years ago), by 28 seconds. A considerable bite that raises this record to the level of the great bombshells of the last three years: the world records of Tigist Assefa, in the marathon, and Letesenbet Gidey, in the half marathon.
The focus was on Jacob Kiplimo, the man with the half marathon and 15 kilometer records, who was also coming for the 10 km. But starting the race, already in the second kilometer, Ngetich remained only 200 meters from the lead, just 200 meters from Kiplimo, who had started a little slower than expected. The first three women were flying. The Kenyan followed in the wake of her hare, Japheth Kipkemboi Kosgei, and as she passed the equator all the alarms went off because the stopwatch of this young runner, only 22 years old, marked 14m13s and equaled the world record for 5 kilometers – the first of that explosive morning – that Beatrice Chebet had achieved just two weeks before, on New Year's Eve, at the Cursa dels Nassos in Barcelona.
It remained to be seen if he was going to be able to resist that wild pace. If what was going to explode was his body, unable to bear going at two minutes and 52 seconds per kilometer. But Ngetich did not give up, he ended up releasing Emmaculate Anyango, who would also end up under 29 minutes (28m57s), and he remained firm to reach the finish line and drop his bomb. The announcement that she is the long-distance runner who has arrived to compete with the best in the world. Because her progression is amazing and every year she improves her mark in the 10 kilometers by almost a minute: 31m20s in 2021, 30m30s in 2022, 29m26 in 2023 and 28m46s in 2024.
His result dwarfed the triumph of Kiplimo, who is fifth all-time in the world ranking after running in 26m48s. The news was Agnes Ngetich, a woman who had begun to shine in 2023 with a bronze medal in the World Cross Country Championships and a sixth place in the 10,000m final at the World Championships in Budapest, and who starts 2024 with a record that is better scored in the Hungarian table than the world records of Assefa and Gidey in marathon and half marathon. The female background is at one of the peak moments in history.
Although, in reality, Ngetich had already broken the 10km world record once. That was in Brasov, in Romania, in September 2023, in a race only for women, without male hares, and she made a time (29m24s) that allowed her to be received at the airport with necklaces and heroin honors. The celebration was cut short days later when the organization of this race in Transylvania announced that she was incorrectly measured and was 25 meters shorter.
The 10K Valencia Ibercaja also set a Spanish record for Abdessa Oukhelfen. The Moroccan athlete who became a Spanish citizen in 2019, who is training in Soria with Enrique Pascual, the former coach of Fermín Cacho and Abel Antón, crossed the finish line in 27m44s, four seconds below the record achieved by Toni Abadía in Laredo in 2019. The mark also serves as the minimum of the RFEA for the Paris Olympic Games in 10,000 and places Valencia as the city of records. In addition to this 10K, the national marathon and half marathon records for both men and women have been broken in its streets.
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