BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, February 14 — In another bravura performance, Grant Fisher destroyed his second World Record in 6 days, clocking 12:44.09 at the David Hemery Valentine’s Invitational on the speedy Boston U oval.
The effort sliced 5.51 seconds off the WR that Ethiopian legend Kenenisa Bekele set 21 years ago, and 7.52 seconds from Woody Kincaid’s AR 12:51.61 set in ’23 on this same track. It also is an absolute American Record (not that USATF recognizes such a concept), faster than his outdoor 12:46.96.
The race, set up to be a WR attempt, was not as smooth as it could have been, though that seemed to not slow the 27-year-old Stanford alum at all. The pacers, DJ Principe and Henry Mcluckie, took off a tad too fast for the first two laps (58.10 for Principe, 58.52 for Fisher) but they quickly got it under control. Only one other dared to stay with Fisher, France’s Jimmy Gressier, who fell off the pace as they neared 3K.
Fisher looked smooth as he clicked through kilos of 2:31.45 and 2:34.68. Principe stepped off at 1600. Mcluckie stayed in for another 800, though at the end his paced slowed. Fisher, antsy to set out on his own, passed 3000 in 7:39.16 (a 2:33.03) and 4000 in 10:12.97 (2:33.81). If anything, he seemed to be getting stronger with each lap, and a new record seemed assured.
Fighting his way past lapped runners — some of them running two abreast — Fisher ran a 2:31.12 final K, hammering his last two laps in 30.08 and 29.28. He jubilantly crossed the line to become the first man since legendary Haile Gebrselassie to simultaneously hold the indoor records for 3000 and 5000.
It wasn’t as easy as his efficient stride made it look, Fisher confessed. “That was a tough one. [The pacers] got me as far as I needed and it was a long, long way home. Those laps felt like 400s and they were just dragging by. I kept looking at the clock… With a few laps to go I was like, ‘As long as I don’t blow up, I think I can get it.’ Then those laps started feeling like 600m and I was seeing stars. I was giving everything I could and I wanted to get as far under that record as possible.”
Gressier held on for 2nd in 12:54.92; Fisher lapped the rest of the field, led by Arkansas’s Yaseen Abdalla in 13:09.99.
Earlier in the day, Georgetown’s Tinoda Matsatsa broke the American Collegiate Record with his 1:45.21 win at 800, putting himself at No. 3 all-time among collegians. Unheralded Siena alum Luciano Fiore took the 1000 in 2:16.74 to become the No. 4 American ever. Princeton’s Harrison Witt took the mile in 3:52.87 — as 36 men across 5 sections dipped under the once hallowed 4:00 barrier — and Frenchman Romain Legendre of Adams State kicked to the 3000 win in 7:36.28.
