Winning a European gold medal can do wonders for confidence and Sarah Healy has wasted no time in demonstrating that. In her first outdoor race of the summer, Healy improved her 3,000m best by almost four seconds when finishing an impressive third in the Diamond League in Rabat, Morocco, on Sunday night.
The 24-year-old’s time of 8:27.02 bettered the 8:30.79 she ran indoors in New York in February, a few weeks before she won the European Indoor title in Apeldoorn, Netherlands.
The third-place finish in Rabat also came in arguably the fastest 3,000m of all-time. Kenya’s Beatrice Chebet, the double Olympic champion, won in 8:11.56, ahead of Olympic silver medallist Nadia Battocletti from Italy, who outkicked Healy for second in 8:26.27.
Chebet had already shown form before Rabat. The 25-year-old demolished a 5,000m field at the Xiamen Diamond League last month. Last summer, she broke the 10,000m world record before winning the 5,000m-10,000m double at the Paris Games.
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For Healy, the nature of her run was as impressive as her time. She patiently worked her way up through the field, which had been strung out by Chebet’s intention to chase a fast time. By the end, Healy had left nine top Ethiopians behind her and another Kenyan, Janeth Chepngetich.
“It was a little messy at the beginning, but I fought back really well and reeled in a lot of girls by myself,” Healy said. “More than the physical thing, you need confidence to do that and I’m proud of that. Third place in a Diamond League is not something that’s easy to come by. I raced it really well.”
Chebet won by almost 15 seconds. Only China’s Wang Junxia, with her world record of 8:06.11 from September, 1993, has ever run faster. That time has been much disputed since, including by Junxia herself. A month earlier, Junxia won the 3,000m at the 1993 World Championships in Stuttgart, leading home a trio of Chinese women who relegated Sonia O’Sullivan, one of the pre-race favourites, into fourth.
Junxia’s 8:06.11 was then clocked in Beijing, among the series of sensational times by Chinese runners coached by Ma Junren that haven’t been touched since. In early 2016, it emerged that Junxia had detailed the regime of state-sponsored doping in a letter to the South China Morning Post. Signed by nine teammates, all of whom claimed Junren forced then to take drugs, it remained unpublished for 19 years.
World Athletics never took any action and all the Chinese women got to keep their medals from Stuttgart.
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Healy will next turn her attention to her specialist outdoor distance, racing the 1,500m at the Diamond League in Rome on June 6th and then in Paris on June 20th. Her best stands at 3:57.46. In an Irish context, only Ciara Mageean’s national record of 3:55.87 is faster.
That could come under threat this summer. As could O’Sullivan’s 3,000m record of 8:21.64, set in London in July, 1994. That time was, for many years, the fastest in the world clocked by any runner outside of China.
