Road To Records is a project that was born in Prague – Letná at the RunCzech headquarters during the covid in cooperation with adidas. And then taken over by adidas and moved to their campus in Germany.
The goal of the projects is to help runners in their development to push world, national and personal records.
One world record, two U20 world records and nine national records. These are the results from this year’s Road to Records which RunCzech helped to organise last weekend at the adidas campus in Herzogenaurach, Germany.
The performance of Emmanuel Wanyonyi was the main talking point of the event. The Kenyan runner set the new world record for the road mile. He beat the previous record of Hobbs Kessler by an impressive 1.57 seconds. The new world record is an amazing time of 3:54.56.
“Today was a tough one, and I was up against a lot of great athletes, so I’m pleased to be able to walk away with this win and hopefully be able to come back next year and retain my title,” said Wanyonyi after the race.
In the same race, Collins Kibiwott Koech set an under-20 world record of 4:00.10 – finishing in fifth. Alongside the world record, national records were broken too including Ryan Mphalele, who performed well to set a new South African record.
In the women’s one mile, Nelly Chepchirchir from Kenya took the lead to cross the finish line in 4:30.90, with the USA’s Addison Wiley was second in 4:31.90.
It was a close battle for third as Great Britain’s Alexandra Bell had to wait to find out her position after dipping over the line at the same time as Ethiopia’s Hawi Abera while beating the British record. Emine Hatun Tuna Mechaal also bettered the Turkish one-mile record.
In the women’s 5-kilometer race Medina Eisa shattered the U20 record by clocking an amazing time of 14:38. The 19-year-old has now secured back-to-back victories in the 5km distance, winning the title last year. Anastasia Marinakou set a Greek record, finishing in 15:50, taking 26 seconds off her personal best.
There were other national records elsewhere, including in the men’s 5km race where Thierry Ndikumwenayo set a Spanish record of 13:17 and Shim JongSub gained a Korean record of 15:29.
In the 10km women’s race, Agnes Jebet Ngetich took to the roads just weeks after having broken the world record in Valencia, winning in a time of 30:03, just outside the World Record. The race also saw Karoline Grovdal set a Norwegian record of 30:52, while Joan Chelimo broke Romania’s national record in 30:52 – taking 29 seconds off her personal best.
Kenya’s Nicholas Kipkorir took the title in the men’s 10km race clocking 27:05 after taking the lead from Sabastian Sawe, the winner of Prague Half-marathon, who finished second (27:06) ahead of Rodrigue Kwizera from Burundi (27:07), as close behind him Yeman Crippa set an Italian record of 27:08.
All athletes competed in the Takumi Sen 10. The design of these shoes is inspired by one worn by the late Agnes Tirop when she broke the women-only 10km world record at Adizero: Road to Records in 2021.