Sport

Longest standing record in men's athletics broken

12:51 pm on 15 April 2024

Lithuania's Mykolas Alekna competing at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest in 2023. He won a bronze medal. Photo: KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV AFP

The longest standing international record in men's athletics, the discus has been broken.

Mykolas Alekna of Lithuania has thrown 74.35 metres at a meet in Ramona, Oklahoma to break German Juergen Schult's mark of 74.08 set in 1986.

Alekna, 21, has previously won silver and bronze medals at the World Athletics champs.

The record is subject to the usual ratification procedures, World Athletics said in a social media post.

The Alekna family now has two of the three best men's discus throwers in history, with Virgilijus Alekna - Mykolas' father - now placed third on the world all-time list with his 73.88m from 2000.

-Reuters