2000M Record Broken

Morocco's Hicham El Guerrouj broke his third world record of the season Tuesday night, shattering the 2,000-meter mark by more than three seconds at the ISTAF meet.

El Guerrouj, running alone over the final two laps, was timed in 4 minutes, 44.79 seconds before a cheering crowd of about 30,000 at Olympic Stadium. The previous record of 4:47.88 was set by Noureddine Morceli of Algeria at Paris in 1995.

Earlier this year, El Guerrouj set world records in the mile and 1,500 meters. His 2,000 record was the highlight of a meet in which Wilson Kipketer and Gabriela Szabo split $1 million.

Kipketer, the Kenyan-born Dane, and Szabo, the diminutive Romanian, each won at all seven Golden League meets this year to qualify for the big prize.

With the crowd cheering him loudly, Kipketer took control of the men's 800 meters midway through the race, then coasted to victory.

The first person to greet and hug him at the finish line was Szabo.

"It was definitely a fight with nerves," Kipketer said. "I didn't sleep well at all, but after the starting gun went off everything was OK."

Kipketer's time of 1:44.04 was nearly three seconds off his world record of 1:41.11, one of three world marks he set before malaria wiped out most of his 1998 season.

Szabo, also supported strongly by the crowd, broke away from a pack of four around the final curve and won the women's 3,000 in a year's best of 14:40.61.

Szabo, who had said she wanted to break her European record of 14:31.28 set last year at ISTAF, had the crowd cheering and whistling as she pulled away from Morocco's Zahra Quaziz to win easily on a warm, windless night.

"It was a great race," said Szabo, who said she was tired after winning at the World Championships two weeks ago at Seville, Spain. "I felt how much the fantastic audience pulled me to the win. That was the secret. It was purely psychological,"

The meet included 18 gold medalists from the worlds.

Maurice Greene capitalized on the absence of injured Frankie Fredericks of Namibia, the Olympic silver medalist, and won the 200 in 20.22, duplicating his triumph at Seville.

"The time wasn't important," said Greene, the 100-meter world record-holder, "I'm just preparing to win the 100 and 200 next year at the Olympics."

Morocco's Ali Ezzine, the bronze medalist at the worlds, outkicked Bernard Barmasai of Kenya after the final hurdle to win the 3,000 steeplechase.

That was the first loss for Barmasai in the Golden League series. Barmasai was disqualified from the jackpot after allegedly colluding to win a race at Zurich.

Canada's Bruny Surin took advantage of Greene's absence in the 100, and won in 10.07, far off his season's best of 9.84.

Larry Wade beat American teammate Mark Crear in the 110 hurdles, leading all the way and winning by .03 seconds in 13.27.

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