Brussels (AFP)
British athletics star Mo Farah broke the hour record (21.330 km) on Friday in Brussels on his comeback on the track after three years of road racing.
Farah (37) thus erases from the tablets the Ethiopian Haile Gebreselassie who had traveled 21.285 km in 60 minutes on June 27, 2007.
The quadruple Olympic champion (5,000 m and 10,000 m in 2012 and 2016), well launched by three hares, found himself alone at the halfway point with his training companion Bashir Abdi, 2nd European performer of all time in the marathon (2 h 4 min 49 in March in Tokyo), before releasing the Belgian in the final minute.
This is a comeback for the six-time world champion who decided to opt for asphalt after the London Worlds in 2017 before announcing his intention to return to the track in 2019 with a view to Tokyo Olympic Games, postponed to 2021 due to coronavirus, where he plans to align with the 10,000 m.
During the past three years, Farah had notably won the Chicago marathon (2018) and took 3rd place in the London marathon (2018) without however managing to break the hegemony of the master of distance, the Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge.
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