Uganda ’ s Joshua Cheptegei lowered the 5 km world record on Sunday with a time of 12 minutes 51 seconds and revealed he had set out to “ really go for ” breaking the sub 13 minutes barrier.

The 10 , 000 m world champion made the most of perfect conditions in the second edition of this race to improve on Kenyan Rhonex Kipruto’ s previous best of 13 min 18 sec last month in Valencia .

“ Wow , this is a really great . I had sub 13 minutes in my mind today so when my legs felt good during the race I decided to really go for it , ” said the 23 -year -old 10, 000 m world champion .

“ To take this many seconds off the record makes me very happy and is a great first test for me in an important season , ” he said with the Tokyo Olympics coming up in July .

Cheptegei took part in both the 5000 m and 10000m at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games coming eighth and sixth respectively at the age of 19.
AFP