Eight world leads help Düsseldorf to take first position in the Competition Rankings

Even Miruts Yifter did it almost forty years ago in a US race against Steve Prefontaine, so perhaps Daniel Kipchirchir Komen is not in such bad company.

The gaffe happened in the men’s 5000m at the PSD Bank Meeting in Düsseldorf, as Komen was chasing the front-running Paul Kipsiele Koech into the bell. Suddenly Komen stopped, as if he considered the race to be over, even though the clock read approximately 12:38.

That left Koech racing against the clock, which he soon stopped in a world-leading 13:02.95, the fifth-fastest indoor performance of all-time. Komen had no problem claiming the runner-up spot in 13:06.27, but the audience was deprived of a potentially gripping fast duel over the final lap.

A third Kenyan, Daniel Salel took the next spot in 13:15.89, ahead of the Asian record 13:19.10 of Qatar’s Essa Rasheed.

That was just one of eight performances in the Arena Sportpark which equalled or bettered this indoor season’s best. The evening also saw seven meet records in the fixture’s fifth yearly edition.

Elsewhere:

* 7.85 world lead for Lolo Jones
* Another 7.09 dash for Laverne Jones-Ferrett
* Robles opens with 7.50 win
* World leads for Borzakovskiy and Choge
* Savigne debuts with 14.85m
* Bartels over Majewski

IAAF website.  Read article

The Düsseldorf PSD Bank Meeting took the current first position in the All-Athletics.com Competition Rankings (category: indoor competitions) by a big margin. View the Competition Rankings