MOROCCO: India's Avinash Sable finished a creditable fifth during the prestigious Diamond League Meet here and also in the process shattered his own 3000m steeplechase national record for the eighth time.
The 27-year-old army man from a humble family in the Beed district of Maharashtra clocked 8:12.48 in a high-quality field late Sunday night to shave off more than three seconds than his own previous national record of 8:16.21 which he ran at the Indian Grand Prix in Thiruvananthapuram in March.
Local hero and Tokyo Olympics gold medallist Soufiane El Bakkali won the race in a meeting record and world lead of 7:58.28. Ethiopia's Tokyo Olympics silver winner Lamecha Girma was second, clocking 7:59.24, with his compatriot Hailemariyam Tegegn taking the third position in a personal best of 8:06.29.
2016 Rio Olympics champion Conseslus Kipruto of Kenya was fourth in 8:12.47, one-hundredth of the second ahead of Sable. Sable, however, finished ahead of Tokyo Olympics bronze medallist Benjamin Kigen of Kenya who ended at eighth with 8:17.32.
Sable is known for breaking his own 3000m steeplechase national record multiple times. He first broke it in 2018 when he clocked 8:29.80 at the National Inter-State championships to erase the then 37-year-old mark of 8:30.88 mark of Gopal Saini.
Last month, Sable smashed the 30-year-old men's 5000m national record at a meet in the USA, clocking 13 minutes and 25.65 seconds, bettering Bahadur Prasad's long-standing record of 13:29.70s set in Birmingham in 1992.