Athletics: Mo Farah breaks Steve Cram's 28-year 1500m record in Monaco
Mo Farah broke Steve Cram's 28-year British 1500m record at Friday's Diamond League meeting in Monaco.
Last Updated: 20/07/13 1:00pm
The double Olympic champion stepped down in distance to hone his speed ahead of next month's World Championships and clocked three minutes 28.81 seconds to finish second to Kenya's Asbel Kiprop.
Farah's time surpassed Cram's mark of 3:29.67 but also eclipsed that of Spaniard Fermin Cacho - 3:28.95 - to make him the new European record holder.
It is some achievement by an athlete who is the Olympic champion over 5,000 and 10,000m and will step up to the marathon next spring.
Farah told the BBC: "Training has been going pretty well. The aim was to work on the speed. It would have been nice to get closer to Kiprop but he is a different class."
Cram added: "To run like that is unbelievable. It puts him right up there in the top five or six of all time. I am shocked in a great way."
Elsewhere, controversial sprinter Justin Gatlin won the men's 100m, a race run against the backdrop of revelations that leading sprinters Tyson Gay and Asafa Powell had failed drug tests.
Gatlin, who served a four-year doping ban from 2006, beat a field without world record-holder Usain Bolt in 9.94 seconds, to show he is likely to be the Jamaican's main contender in Moscow.
