WE APPROACH the end of a remarkable season in which two ancient women’s world records have fallen.
Up until recently it was the case that women’s world records just weren’t set any more – at least not in standard, regularly contested, individual disciplines that have long been established on the circuit, which rules out events like the triple jump and pole vault. For similar reasons, you could discount Tirunesh Dibaba’s world record from 2008 in the 5000m, a discipline which replaced the 3000m as standard in the 1980s and which somehow survived the Chinese onslaught in 1993.
This all changed when Genzebe Dibaba broke Qu Yunxia’s 1993 1500m record in July last year. Up until that year no one had come within five seconds of the legendary mark since 2006.