STOCKHOLM — Meseret Defar of Ethiopia broke the women's 5,000-meter indoor world record by more than three seconds at the GE Gala on Wednesday night.

Defar was timed in 14 minutes, 24.37 seconds. Tirunesh Dibaba, also of Ethiopia, set the old mark of 14:27.42 in 2007.

With excellent pacemaking, Defar was two or three seconds under Dibaba's split times throughout the race.

During the final laps, many of the fans at the sold out Ericsson Globe Arena stood up to cheer her on.

With the win, Defar extended her unbeaten indoor streak to 18 races since March 2003.

Defar took the lead with about 3,000 meters left in the 34-lap race and lapped most of the seven other finishers twice.

Maria Konovalova of Russia was a distant runner-up in 15:42.37.

It was the seventh record set at the Globe since 1989.

In the men's 800, 2004 Olympic champion Yuriy Borzakovskiy outkicked Ismail Ahmed Ismail of Sudan for his fifth victory in seven races at the Globe.

Borzakovskiy, who has never finished worse than second here, clocked a relatively slow 1:48.13. Ismail, the Olympic silver medalist last year, was seven-hundredths of a second behind.

Olympic champion Wilfred Bungei of Kenya finished fifth in 1:50.11.