A cool wintry evening in the Swedish capital of Stockholm could not stop Sudan's latest track phenom from burning up the track tonight in his second-ever indoor competition.
Abubaker Kaki, 18, ran away with the World Junior record in the 1.000m run, clocking two minutes 15,77 seconds in a solid run in front of a capacity crowd of 10.641—the largest ever assembled for a competition in our Scandinavian nation.
Kaki, a former goalee who was discovered by an athletics coach in Sudan only three years ago, became the fifth-fastest athlete at the distance, and trails world record-holder Wilson Kipketer's leading standard by a mere 0,81 seconds.
Kaki ran with such confidence that he was able to unleash a very powerful final lap kick away from pursuing Kenyan Richard Kiplagat, closing in 26 seconds following his 1.49 opening 800m segment.The precocious young adult has high ambitions for himself outdoors, including breaking Sammy Koskei's 1.42,28 African record and winning the Olympic final—two goals no one in attendance tonight will doubt he his capable of achieving following his excellent run.
Noureddine Morceli, the previous world 1.500m record-holder, has the fastest African time ever recorded indoors at 2.15,26.
Kenyan Sylas Kimutai held the former world junior record of 2.17,96—a mark he set in Athens six years ago. Kenyan 2000 Olympic 1.500m champion Noah Ngeny holds the world outdoor record of 2.11,96 set in 1999 in Rieti, with Kenyan Benjamin Kipkirui the fastest junior outdoors with a 2.15,00 set one month earlier in Nice, France.
The two-hour event offered great entertainment by our national stars, with Sanna Kallur and Johan Wissman taking home victories, but one downside to the evening was Carolina Klüft's withdrawal from both the 60m hurdles and the long jump from a thy condition she stated gave her great pain.
Klüft, the reigning IAAF World Indoor pentathlon champion, will miss this weekend's Swedish Indoor Championships in Malmö, and her world title defense in Valencia is also questionable at this point.
Klüft is scheduled to have an MRI on Friday.
Kallur Continues Dominance
Kallur, the newly-minted world record-holder at 60m hurdles and defending IAAF World Indoor champion at the distance (unbeaten in her five previous competitions this indoor season) ran another blistering time, stopping the clock 7,74 seconds after the starter fired away and sent her toward another record chase.
Kallur got a firsthand look and feel for the new, quicker track surface which is being used at next month's world championships and the Olympics later this summer in Beijing, but shrugged off any suggestion the track adds significance.
"Everyone is talking so much about the lanes," she said to Dagens-Nyheter, "but I don't think they have such importance."
What was remarkable about Kallur's time was that she reacted quite late to the starter's pistol, getting left in the blocks and forced to make up a deficit already at the first hurdle.
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