CHEBET, KIPYEGON DAZZLE WITH WORLD RECORDS AT PREFONTAINE CLASSIC
By David Monti, @d9monti
(c) 2025Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved – Used with permission.
EUGENE (05-Jul) — The gala 50th edition of the Prefontaine Classic lived up to all the hype, punctuated by world record performances by Kenyans Beatrice Chebet and Faith Kipyegon. Chebet, 25, became the first woman in history to break 14 minutes for 5000m, clocking 13:58.06 in a race which also served as the Kenyan Trial for the 2025 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo in September. Kipyegon, 31, rebounded strongly from her attempt to break four minutes for the mile in Paris just over a week ago and ran 3:48.68 for 1500m, the first ever sub-3:49 by a woman. Nearly all of the 12,650 seats at Hayward Field at the University of Oregon were filled for today’s meeting, the ninth stop of the 2025 Wanda Diamond League.
Chebet got her record first. In warm, sunny and slightly breezy conditions, the reigning Olympic 5000m and 10,000m champion followed pacemakers Klaudia Kazimierska of Poland and Dorcus Ewoi of Kenya through the first kilometer in 2:47.07, then the second in 5:35.37. After the pacers dropped out, Chebet took the lead and kept up the high tempo. Only Ethiopia’s Gudaf Tsegay, the previous 5000m world record holder, and Kenya’s Agnes Jebet Ngetich could hold such a blistering pace. Chebet split 3000m in 8:22.96 setting a new stadium record for that distance.
“I can say I pushed a lot after the pacemaker dropped,” the tiny Chebet told reporters. “I pushed for myself and I say, I have to go because I am the one who wants a world record for myself and go for it.”
Neither Tsegay nor Ngetich wanted to lead, so Chebet had to do all of the work. For the two laps before the bell (measured from the finish line), she split 66.9 then 68.4. In the final lap she still had her two rivals very close with just 200 meters to go, but she exploded around the final turn leaving them in her wake. She ran her final lap in 61.9 seconds.
“I’m so happy,” Chebet told reporters. “Today I can say it’s a great day for me. Achieving sub-14:00 in women, being the first woman sub-14:00 is amazing for me.”
Ngetich passed Tsegay to take second, 14:01.29 to 14:04.41. Another Kenyan, Margaret Akidor, was a distant fourth in 14:30.34. Chebet now holds the world records for both 5000m and 10,000m (28:54.14). She’s the first woman to accomplish that feat since Ingrid Kristiansen of Norway in…
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