Meseret Defar of Ethiopia broke the women's 5,000-meter indoor world record by more than three seconds in clocking 14 minutes, 24.37 seconds at the GE Gala on Wednesday. Tirunesh Dibaba, also of Ethiopia, set the old mark of 14:27.42 in 2007 in Boston. With excellent pacemaking, Defar was two or three seconds under Dibaba's split times throughout the race. With the win, Defar extended her unbeaten indoor streak to 18 races since March 2003. The 25-year-old Defar has won Olympic and world championship titles in the 5,000, and she's as good in the 3,000 with three consecutive world indoor golds and a world record in that distance. Maria Konovalova of Russia was a distant runner-up in 15:42.37. In the men's 800, 2004 Olympic champion Yuriy Borzakovskiy outkicked Ismail Ahmed Ismail of Sudan for his fifth victory in seven races at the Globe. Borzakovskiy clocked a relatively slow 1:48.13. Olympic champion Wilfred Bungei of Kenya finished fifth in 1:50.11. Olympic champion Steve Hooker won the pole vault at 5.86 meters to extend his winning streak to five meets. He failed three times at 6 meters.
