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Stewart McSweyn has broken the Australian 3000m record at the Diamond League athletics meet in Rome.
Australian Stewart McSweyn has smashed the Australian 3000m record at the Rome Diamond League meet on the same night where Swede Armand Duplantis produced the highest-ever outdoor pole vault.
McSweyn clocked seven minutes 28.02 seconds, slashing more than four seconds off the old mark set by Craig Mottram in 2006.
The 25-year-old Tasmanian moved to 17th spot on the alltime list after finishing third in a race of the highest quality.
Uganda's Jacob Kiplimo claimed the victory in 7:26.64 - the fastest time in the world this year - and Norwegian Jakob Ingebritsen (7:27.05) was second.
Ingebritsen and McSweyn are the only two non-Africans in the alltime top-20 in the 3000m.
The national 3000m mark has previously been held some of the most revered names in Australian distance running including John Landy, Ron Clarke and Mottram.
Both Mottram and McSweyn were coached by Nic Bideau.
McSweyn is set to to be Australia's stand-out male track athlete at next year's Tokyo Olympics, if the rescheduled Games go ahead.
Duplantis won the men's pole vault with 6.15m - the highest-ever outdoor clearance - to continue his unbeaten season.
The 20-year-old cleared the bar at the second attempt with room to spare and was only three centimetres short of the overall world record he set indoors in Glasgow in February.
Despite that, he decided not to go for a higher mark at the huge Stadio Olimpico, where there were no spectators due to COVID-19 restrictions.
Sergey Bubka's 6.14m mark in 1994 was the previous highest outdoor clearance, but World Athletics has not distinguished between indoor and outdoor records in pole vault since 2000.
"There's a lot of confusion because the pole vault is the only event which has one world record for both indoors and outdoors," said Duplantis.
"I wanted the outdoor world best at 6.15 so there would no longer be any confusion. I now have the best jumps indoors & outdoors."
Elaine Thompson-Herah ran the fastest time this year as the Jamaican demolished the field to win the women's 100 metres in 10.85.
