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The 23-year-old, who was competing in just her fifth half
marathon, clocked splits of 30:05 and 45:37 to improve the 10km
and 15km world records.
"I didn't know I would break the world record today," said
Jepkosgei, whose previous best time was 1:06:08 in this year's
Ras Al Khaimah Half Marathon.
"I only wanted to improve my time. This is a surprise for me.
The conditions were good for me because I'm used to training at
this time of day, in the morning."
Defending champion Violah Jepchumba of Kenya finished second in
65:22, with Fancy Chemutai third.
Jepkosgei was pushed to her limits by Jepchumba as the pair were
separated by one second at the 10km mark, both well inside the
previous record of 30:21 set by Paula Radcliffe in 2003.
However, Jepkosgei began pulling away from Jepchumba as her lead
grew to three seconds at 15km and she crossed the line with
64:52 on the clock to shave 14 seconds from the world
half-marathon record set this year by compatriot Peres
Jepchirchir.
Ethiopia's Olympic 10,000m bronze medalist Tamirat Tola won the
men's race in 59:37. Kenyans Josphat Tanui and Geoffrey Yegon
were second and third.
(Reporting by Shravanth Vijayakumar in Bengaluru, editing by Ed
Osmond)
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