At her very first Diamond League in Monaco on Friday, Canada’s Lucia Stafford obliterated the 30-year-old Canadian record over the 2,000m distance. Her time of 5:31.18 beat Angela Chalmers’ previous record of 5:34.49 by almost three seconds.
The 2,000m isn’t commonly run, so many of the elite athletes in the field jumped at the chance to set new records, including Australia’s Jessica Hull. The race was set up for Hull to challenge the world record of 5:21.56 set by Francine Niyonsaba of Burundi at the World Continental meet in Zagreb, Croatia in 2021. With the help of three different athletes who shared the job of pace-setting, Hull finished with a time 5:19.70–the fastest 2,000m in history–with exactly two seconds to spare.
World record FLASH 🚨
5 days after becoming the fifth-fastest women’s 1500m runner in history, 🇦🇺’s Jessica Hull became the quickest 2000m runner of all time, setting a world record of 5:19.70 at the @MeetingHerculis.
🔗 https://t.co/7umHZ3u8ML#DiamondLeague pic.twitter.com/m35QrhdExU
— World Athletics (@WorldAthletics) July 12, 2024
In the same race, Cory Ann McGee‘s time of 5:28.78 betters the former North American record of 5:32.70, which Stafford also snuck under.
This sixth-place finish at her very first Diamond League marks Stafford’s first outdoor national record. She already holds the North American indoor 1,000m record of 2:33.75.
Arop runs season’s best
After getting passed in the final 100m stretch of his race, Marco Arop, the reigning world champion in the men’s 800m, finished sixth with a time of 1:42.93–also bettering his season’s best.
Making his Diamond League debut, 19-year-old Christopher Morales-Williams also took sixth place in his 400m race. Although his time of 45.11 is not nearly his fastest of the season, he’ll have the chance to compete against these world-class athletes at the Olympic Games in Paris next month.
Two-time Olympic pole-vaulter Alysha Newman took fourth place in her event earlier in the day, jumping a season’s best of 4.76m. She jumped her previous season’s best of 4.75m to take the win at the Canadian Olympic Trials in Montreal earlier this month.
