World Athletics votes Cheptegei Athlete of the Month

World Athletics has voted Uganda's Joshua Cheptegei as the Athlete of August following his exploits in Monaco that saw him break a ten-year 5,000m record.

The 23-year-old produced a brilliant display to break Kenenisa Bekele's 16-year-old 5,000m track world record by almost two seconds as athletics made a return amid the coronavirus pandemic at the Wanda Diamond League meeting in Monaco last month.

Cheptegei had predicted a world record run in the big event of the season and duly delivered as he clocked 12 minutes, 35.36 seconds, destroying the 12:37.35 that Ethiopian long-distance runner Bekele set in the Netherlands in 2004.

"We have a winner. Thanks to his phenomenal 5,000m world record, @Joshuacheptegei1 is August's moment of the month," stated a tweet from World Athletics.

The Monaco record was a follow-up on his new 10km world record previously held by Leonard Patrick Komon of Kenya, which he improved by six seconds on the road with a time of 26 minutes and 38 seconds.