(Reuters) – Ethiopia’s Yalemzerf Yehualaw smashed the women’s 10km road record with a time of 29 minutes and 14 seconds in the mixed race at the World Athletics Label road race in Castellon, Spain on Sunday.
The 22-year-old shaved 24 seconds off the previous mark of 29 minutes and 38 seconds set by Bahrain’s Kalkidan Gezahegne, also born in Ethiopia, last year.
“Today a dream came true. I felt really great in the race, the first 5km was very fast, I was struggling a little bit in the second 5km but I was still able to maintain a high pace,” Yehualaw said.
Yehualaw broke the half marathon world record last year by 19 seconds, although the time was not ratified by World Athletics as the course was 54 metres short.
(Reporting by Silvia Recchimuzzi in Gdansk, editing by Ed Osmond)
