ATHLETICS:Twice Olympic 10,000 metres champion Haile Gebrselassie broke the world one-hour record at the Ostrava grand prix last night, running 21.285 km.
The 34-year-old surpassed Mexican Arturo Barrios's previous mark of 21.101 km, set in La Fleche, France, on March 30th, 1991.
"At around the half-way point I felt I could get the record," a smiling Gebrselassie said at the finish line.
"I felt comfortable the whole way."
On the way to the new mark, Gebrselassie also broke the 20-km world record time of 56 minutes 55.60 seconds, set by Barrios during his run in 1991. The Ethiopian clocked 56:25.98.
Gebrselassie, the best distance runner of his era, retired from track running to concentrate on the marathon after the 2004 Athens Olympics.
In preparation for yesterday's record attempt he made a surprise return to the track in the Dutch town of Hengelo last month, clocking 26 minutes 52.91 seconds in a 10,000 metres race.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/YVIRIOZQ35EWRPZXR27KGMO6YU.png)