Jakob Ingebrigtsen broke one of the longest-standing track world records* on Sunday (25) in the Silesian Stadium when he ran the 3000 meters in a breathtaking time of 7:17.55 minutes, beating the best mark of 7:20.67 set by Kenyan Daniel Komen in 1996 by more than three seconds.

For the 23-year-old Norwegian, who lost his Olympic title over 1500m in Paris earlier this month but won gold over 5000m, it was a great performance at the 12th Wanda Diamond League meeting of the season.

On the eve of the competition, Ingebrigtsen said: “I’m looking forward to the race. The 3000 m is a very good distance for me and everything is ready for something big.”

That was great. He was already third in the all-time world rankings with his time of 7:23.63, which he ran in Eugene last year, and knew that even the second best performance of 7:23.09, which the Moroccan Hicham El Guerrouj achieved in 1999, was still a long way off.

But on this day, Ingebrigtsen made history: as he left the field behind after passing the bell on the last lap, the green Wavelight world record displays flew behind him as if they had fallen out of his pocket.

Amazingly, when he reached the finishing straight, he was 10 metres ahead of the green light queue and put his hands to his head after crossing the finish line. Ethiopia’s Berihu Aregawi, the Olympic 10,000m silver medallist, delivered the third-best performance of all time, coming in second with a time of 7:21.28.

More to follow …

*Subject to the usual ratification procedure