Haile Gebrselassie smashed the world 10,000 metre record by more than five seconds at a meeting in Holland last night. The Ethiopian star clocked 26 minutes 22.75 seconds at the Adriaan Paulen Memorial track in Hengelo to improve on the mark of 26:27.85 set by Kenya's Paul Tergat in Brussels on August 27th last year.

Gebrselassie ran the final nine circuits with only lapped runners for company after the last of the five Ethiopian pacemakers he had brought along dropped out.

Gebrselassie, the Olympic gold medallist over the distance, had announced last week that he planned a world record attempt at the IAAF Grand Prix II meeting, and a crowd of 18,000 turned up to see him live up to his promise.

He has now broken the 10,000 metre record three times, first at Hengelo in 1995 and again last year in Oslo.