Aníta Hinriksdóttir, a 16-year-old Icelandic athlete from ÍR sports club, broke a 32-year-old record in 1,500-meter indoors racing when she crossed the finish line at 4:19:57 minutes at a national track-and-field tournament held by ÍR at Laugardalshöll in Reykjavík yesterday.

Source: Facebook.

“I’m very happy about it,” commented Aníta to Fréttablaðið. “My goal was to set this record today. I just had to be careful not to start too fast because I’m more used to competing in shorter races. It worked out well.”

The previous record was set by Ragnheiður Ólafsdóttir in Dortmund, Germany, in 1981 when she ran 1,500 meters at 4:21:49 minutes, ruv.is reports.

Aníta has also broken several other old records in recent months and the third weekend in January she broke her own Icelandic record in 800-meter running and thereby secured her right to compete at the 2013 European Athletics Indoor Championships in Gothenburg, Sweden, in March.

As for other achievements last weekend, Kolbeinn Hörður Gunnarsson from UFA set a new Icelandic record in 400-meter indoor race at 48:03 seconds and Hilmar Örn Jónsson from ÍR broke the age category record in shot put among 16-18-year-olds with a throw of 18.17 meters.

ESA