European indoor champion Laura Muir set a British indoor record of 3:59.58 in second place behind the 24-year-old 2019 world outdoor bronze medallist.

It was a climactic finale to an evening of stunningly good middle distance running in the third of this season’s World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold meetings.

Earlier, Norway’s 20-year-old Jakob Ingebrigtsen had produced the fifth fastest ever men’s indoor 1500m time and Tsegay’s compatriot Getnet Wale had run the fourth fastest 3,000m ever seen.

Ingebrigtsen finished more than five seconds clear as he clocked 3:31.80, a European indoor record, with his nearest rival being the Pole who outsprinted him to the European Indoor title in Glasgow in 2019, Marcin Lewandowski, who clocked 3:36.83.

The Norwegian's main expected rival Samuel Tefara, the 21-year-old Ethiopian who set the world indoor record of 3:31.04 in 2019, finished back in 11th place in 3:39.27.

Wale soon presented another extraordinary track performance at the Arena Stade Couvert as he won the 3,000m in 7:24.98.

It was an astonishing effort for the 20-year-old, who missed a world 3,000m steeplechase medal at the 2019 World Championships by one place. 

Only Kenya’s Daniel Komen, who holds the world indoor and outdoor records of 7:24.90 and 7:20.67, respectively, and Morocco’s Hicham El Guerrouj, who ran 7:23.09 outdoors in Brussels, have gone faster.

World 110m hurdles champion Grant Holloway produced an electrifying effort in the 60m hurdles, winning in 7.32sec, just 0.02sec off the world indoor record set by Britain’s Colin Jackson in 1994.

The 23-year-old United States athlete, who equalled his 60m hurdles US record of 7.35 earlier this season, had warmed up with a meeting record of 7.38 in the heats.

Burkina Faso’s Hugues Fabrice Zango, who broke the world indoor triple jump record 23 days ago with 18.07 metres, earned his third consecutive victory in Liévin in 17.82m, thus surpassing the 2011 meeting record of 17.64m set by his coach, Teddy Tamgho.

Sweden's Mondo Duplantis won his latest meeting with the man whom he succeeded as pole vault world record holder last year, France's Renaud Lavillenie, earning the honours with a relatively sedate clearance of 5.86m.

The 21-year-old, who leads the 2021 world rankings with 6.03m, was named victor on countback from the 23-year-old American vaulter Chris Nilsen, who beat him to the 2019 National Collegiate Athletic Association title with an effort of 5.95m.

Lavillenie, who has held top place in the world rankings twice this year with clearances of 5.95 and 6.02m, had to settle for third place after clearing 5.80m.

Ethiopia’s Lemlem Hailu produced one of the surprises of the night in the women’s 3,000m as her drive for home on the final lap saw her clock a meeting record of 8:32.55 ahead of the two favourites, Sifan Hassan of The Netherlands and Beatrice Chepkoech of Kenya.

Hassan, the world 1500m and 10,000m champion, was second in 8:33.62 in what was her first indoor race since the 2018 World Indoor Championships, where she took 3,000m silver and 1500m bronze.

Chepkoech, the 3,000m steeplechase world champion and world record holder, won the 3,000m at the opening Tour Gold meeting in Karlsruhe last month but had to settle for third place tonight in 8:34.21.

Cuban long jumper Juan Miguel Echevarria, one of the most mercurial talents on the tour, produced a characteristically dramatic finale to win on the night with a final effort of 8.25m - which put him top of the 2021 world rankings.

That effort from the 22-year-old world indoor champion - who has a legal personal best of 8.68m and managed a gargantuan effort of 8.92m in 2019, just three centimetres short of Mike Powell’s 1991 world record, but with a following wind 1.3 metres per second over the admissible limit - saw him better the lead of 8.21m set by Greece's Militiadis Tentoglou.

The women's 60m hurdles final was extraordinarily tight, with only thousands between Nadine Visser of The Netherlands, Christina Clemons of the United States and Finland’s Nooralotta Neziri, who finished in that order in 7.91 - a time that allowed Neziri to match her national record.

Nigeria’s Tobi Amusan was fourth in 7.99.

Britain’s Holly Bradshaw - who recently vaulted 4.85m, the second best height of her career - remained in ebullient form as she won with a best of 4.73m.

Britain’s Jemma Reekie marked her season’s debut with victory in the 800m, clocking 2:00.64, with Ethiopia’s Habitam Alemu second in 2:00.86, Norway’s Hedda Hynne third in 2:00.92 and Britain’s newly-established world under-20 indoor record-holder Keely Hodgkinson fourth in 2:01.71 after her 1:59.03 in Vienna.

Elliott Giles made it a British double in the 800m as clocked 1:45.49, one hundredth of a second inside his winning time at Karlsruhe, confirming second place in the world 2021 rankings behind the 1:44.37 set by Bryce Hoppel of the US on January 31.