Joshua Cheptegei broke the 10,000m track world record on Wednesday in Valencia with a time of 26mins 11.00 seconds.
He lowered the previous mark of 26min 17.53sec set by Kenenisa Bekele in 2005 in Brussels.
This was the 24-year-old 10,000m world champion’s third world record this year and cemented his standing as the new middle distance maestro.
In February he claimed the world 5km road record in Monaco.
Then, after a period of coronavirus lockdown in his native Uganda, he returned to Monaco and, in his first race back, wiped almost two seconds off Bekele’s 16-year-old track world record time over the 5,000m as he clocked 12min 35.35sec.
Cheptegei served notice of his class when he took silver at the 2017 world championships in London when he was still just 20.