Reuters.
Former Spanish runner Isaac Viciosa has publicly apologised to athlete Mohamed Katir after saying he would have preferred an athlete with Spanish surnames to have taken his 3,000 metre national record.
Katir, who was born in Morocco but grew up in Spain and represents the country internationally, broke Viciosa s 23-year-old record by almost two seconds after clocking a time of 7:27.64 at Gateshead s Diamond League meeting last Tuesday.
Katir also holds the Spanish records for 1500m and 5000m, and will compete for Spain in the latter at the Tokyo Olympics which start this week.
Viciosa told magazine Soy Corredor that he would have preferred that an athlete with Spanish surnames broke the record, leading to a widespread backlash.
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