Organisers target women's world record at 10K Valencia Ibercaja

Norah Jeruto is the main act at the 10K Valencia Ibercaja set for Sunday 9 January 2021. 

Two years ago Kenya’s Rhonex Kipruto set the current men’s world record with his impressive 26:24 performance. This year, organisers hoped to match that feat in the women’s event at the World Athletics Label Road Race. 

Jeruto has recorded times of 29:51 in January 2020 and 30:08 in October 2021. She boasts the world’s third-quickest 3000m steeplechase time in history with a stunning 8:53.65 clocking to her credit and confirmed her top shape by winning the Italica cross country meeting on 21 November against some top competition.

Her main competition would have been Ethiopia’s Yalemzerf Yehualaw. Unfortunately she tested positive for Covid-19 and will not feature. 

Jeruto us looking to improve the 29:38 mark achieved by Bahrain’s Kalkidan Gezahegne in Geneva last October. Gezahegne's performance is awaiting ratification as the women's world 10km record set in a mixed race, with the current ratified mark the 29:43 run by Joyciline Jepkosgei in 2017.

Newly-crowned European cross country champion Karoline Bjerkeli Grovdal is also in contention, her presence threatening Paula Radcliffe' European record. 

Boosted by her recent success, Grovdal should improve her lifetime best of 30:32 set in 2020 to attack the European record of 30:21 set by Radcliffe in 2003, when it was a world record.

Sweden’s 2014 European 5000m champion Meraf Bahta, silver medallist in Dublin, will also be looking for a fast time after setting a national 5km record of 15:04 on 31 December in Barcelona.

Grovdal and Bahta will likely be joined by Kenya’s Gladys Chepkurui, who achieved a career best of 30:34 on the Spanish soil of Laredo last year, while the British pair of Charlotte Purdue and Samantha Harrison will try to break the 32-minute barrier for the first time.

The men's race is headed by the Kenyan trio of Daniel Simiu, Boniface Kibiwott and Jacob Krop. The former won the 2020 San Silvestre Vallecana, boasts a fine 27:12 10km lifetime best and lowered his 5000m clocking to 12:55.88 last summer, while Kibiwott timed 27:13 in Geneva for third place last October.

As for Krop, he’s a talented athlete who placed sixth at the World Athletics Championships in Doha over 5000m aged 18. He set his lifetime best of 27:30 in Valencia in 2020 and showed fine fitness during his last appearance in Herzogenaurach, where he won the 5km event in a PB of 13:06.

The Ethiopian response should come from the 17-year-old Chimdesa Debele, winner of the Lille 10km last November thanks to a career best of 27:16, while Switzerland’s Julien Wanders and Spain’s Carlos Mayo will be the leading Europeans. 

The Swiss athlete set the current European record of 27:13 here two years ago while Mayo, a 27:25.00 performer on the track, is targeting a national record to improve the mark which currently stands at 27:48