Fil-Moroccan Yacine Guermali eclipsed the Philippine record in men’s 5000 meters during the Oregon Relays in the United States Friday (Saturday Manila time).
Guermali, whose mother Juliet hails from the cycling Quilban clan from Pangasinan, clocked a personal best of 13 minutes and 52.54 seconds in the invitational category to surpass the 13:58.43 national mark of Eduardo Buenavista registered at the 2002 Asian Games in Busan, South Korea.
He also surpassed his personal best of 14:02.64 he set in Palo Alto, California in 2019.
Though his performance put him at 15th place behind eventual winner Cole Hocker (13:19.98), his time is faster than the gold-medal performance of Thailand’s Kieran Tuntivate (14:31.15) at the 2019 Southeast Asian Games that the country hosted.
A junior at Gonzaga University, the 21-year-old Guermali has committed to race for the national team in this year’s SEAG in Vietnam and other future events.
He was set to join the 2019 biennial meet but was hampered with injuries.