© Copyright – 2019 – Athletics Illustrated
For the seventh time in 2019, Toronto’s Gabriela DeBues-Stafford has improved a national record on the track. Five of those performances came during the prestigious Diamond League (DL) meets.
In Brussels on Friday, she improved her own 5,000-metre record with a 14:44.12 performance.
She finished seventh of 12 starters and 11 finishers. Trap Hassan of the Netherlands won in the time of 14:26.26, second was Letesenbet Gidey of Ethiopia in 14:29.54 and third was German Konstanze Klosterhalfen with a 14:29.89 finish time.
Camille Buscomb of New Zealand (pacer) led the group through the first kilometre to a 2:55.94 pace, before dropping after just over four minutes, then Eva Cherono took over and led through 2000m at 5:54.62. Trapp took over from Gidey during the final kilometre to take the win.
Debues-Stafford sat patiently in last place for much of the 12.5-lap race. It was during the final km where she picked off several competitors.
For Hassan, she owns a best of 14:22.12 from London in July of this year. Gidey owns a best of 14:23.14 from July 2018.
In May of this year, Debues-Stafford bettered Courtney Babcock’s record of 14:54.98 from 2003 during the Stockholm DL meet by running a 14:51.59.
She has now twice bettered the 1500m distance record when she took Lynn Kanuka’s best from 1985 which she set at 4:00.27. DeBues-Stafford ran 4:00.26 in July of this year, and then ran a 3:59.59 in August; both performances from DL meets in London and Zurich, respectively.
DeBues-Stafford took down the mile record during the Monaco Diamond League meet in July by bettering Leah Pells’ record of 4:23.28 with a near six-second improvement going 4:17.87.
She also owns two Canadian indoors records that she set in 2019, including the mile at 4:24.80 from the New Balance meet in Boston from January and the 5,000m at 14:57.45 during the British Milers Club meet in Glasgow, Scotland. That makes it five records, improved seven times in 2019 and she is not done yet. Debues-Stafford has the 2019 IAAF World Athletics Championships to compete in. They will be run in Doha, Qatar starting Sept. 28.
SHOESTRINGS: Also in Brussels, Toronto’s Andre de Grasse and Aaron Brown finished third and fourth in the 200m event. De Grasse finished in a season-best time of 19.87. It appears that Brown clocked in at 20.00, but the time on the results list is missing. American Noah Lyles won in 19.74, while Ramil Guliyev finished second with a 19.86 performance.
Full results are available here>>
