A Look at All the World Records That Were Broken in 2023, Faith Kipyegon Leads

The 2023 track and field season came to an end with the conclusion of the two-day Diamond League finals in Eugene, Oregon.

Gudaf Tsegay, Shericka Jackson, and Jakob Ingebrigsten were among the athletes who brought their A-game to Hayward Field - the scene of last year's World Athletics Championships.

There are still a few silver and challenger tour series to go but most athletes will now retreat, take a break, and regroup ahead of what is expected to be an even more interesting 2024 with the Paris Olympics fast approaching.

The season started with the usual indoor championships before the Diamond League kicked off in Doha on May 5. The climax of the season was the World Athletics Athletics Championships in Budapest.

Herein, Sports Brief looks at the season that was and the athletes who captured our attention by breaking various world records.

Kindly note we have only included core events in the World Championships calendar and thus, records like Faith Kipyegon's one-mile record will not feature.

1. 1,500m Women's

And now that we have mentioned her, we might as well start with her. Name an athlete who had a better season than Faith Kipyegon; we will wait.

Before 2023, Kipyegon was undoubtedly already the most dominant athlete the world has ever seen in the 1,500m, but there was still the small issue of the world record that she was yet to conquer.

June 2, Florence Diamond League. Cometh the hour. Cometh the woman! The mother of one swept aside everyone, beat the green wavelength to bring the record to an astonishing 3:49.11.

No woman had ever broken the 3:50 barrier before, but oh boy, didn't the double Olympic champion have news for you?

2. 3,000m men's steeplechase

If you were to name one person who has been unlucky as far as gold medals are concerned, then Lamecha Girma would rank highly on that list.

The Ethiopian has finished in second place in four consecutive major events. He has been beaten by Soufianne El Bakkali in three of the events, with Conseslus Kipruto winning once in Doha 2019.

The 22-year-old would have an atonement of sorts when on June 9 at the Paris Diamond League, he obliterated the long-standing record of Saif Saeed Shaheen.

Girma ran 7 minutes 52.11 seconds, beating Shaheen's record of 7 minutes 53.63 seconds that had stood since 2004 as captured by Reuters. Bakkali was not at the French capital meet.

3. 5,000m women's

Many thought this would be Kipyegon's record for many years - until Gudaf Tsegay happened. In what has been a brilliant year for Kipyegon, the 1,500m specialist ran only her second-ever 5,000m race on June 9, a week after breaking the 1,500m world record.

Noah Lyles meets Jose Mourinho during Adidas day after World Championships heroics

Athletics

Kipyegon would break Letesenbet Gidey's record, bringing it to 14 minutes 5.20 seconds. This was huge in any language, considering that the 5000m wasn't really her favourite discipline.

But in the final event of the season, Tsegay shattered Kipyegon's time by taking a clean five seconds off the record to shock fans in Eugene and worldwide.

Ahead of next season, one cannot help but wonder if we will finally have a woman run below 14 minutes in the 5000m.

4. Pole vault men's

The man who breaks his own records. If a petition were to be started to rename pole vault as a sport to Mondo Pole Vault, it might receive overwhelming support.

Armand Duplantis cleared 6.23m at the Eugene Diamond League finals, which was a centimetre more than the previous world record of 6.22m set by - guess who - Duplantis himself. He has done it seven times now.

He did so without a fuss, with his nearest challenger, Ernest Obiena, only clearing 5.82m, as reported by Olympics.

Other records that fell this year but are not necessarily main disciplines in major events include the aforementioned Kipyegon's mile record and Jakob Ingebrigsten's 2000m record.