Agnes Jebet working on bigger goal after breaking world record
Reading Time: 2min | Wed. 30.04.25. | 21:40
The 24-year-old missed out on the Kenyan trials last year due to a stress fracture
Kenyan long-distance runner Agnes Jebet Ngetich says her record-breaking run at the Adizero: Road to Records race last Saturday will push her to making this year’s World Athletics Championships.
Jebet, in the streets of Herzogenaurach, Germany, became the first woman to run under 30 minutes in the women’s only 10 km, cruising to a world record time of 29:27.
In doing that, Jebet usurped the late Agnes Tirop’s record of 30:01, and admitted in an interview with Daily Nation that she did not expect to do it.
“I had just planned to run a good race in Germany, a world record wasn’t on my mind,” Jebet said. “Sometimes one doesn’t plan for the record. A similar thing happened last year when I broke the women's mixed 10km record.”
Jebet, only 24, ran a blistering 28:46 in last year’s race at Valencia to hold the women’s mixed 10km world record.
In her aim for a women’s-only record last year, she ended up missing the mark by two seconds, which led her to the big moment.
Speaking on the impact of Saturday’s race win - which Jebet took ahead of Ethiopia’s duo of Fentaye Belayneh and Senayet Getachew - the World Athletics Cross Country Championships bronze medalist said it will play a role in her contesting a place for this year’s World Championships set for 13-21 September.
“After missing out on representing Kenya at the Olympics last year, I am determined to make the team for the World Athletics Championships. I pray to God that I stay healthy,” she said.
“I really need to work on my speed if I am to match them.”
Last year, a stress fracture in Jebet’s leg kept her out of the 10,000m Paris Olympics trials in Prefontaine.
“Facing the finest is a good challenge and a good experience. I really need to improve my distance running career,” she added.
