Agnes Samaria continued her fantastic form of late when she broke the Namibian record over 1ÃÆ’Æ‘ÀÃ…ÃÆ”šÃ‚ 500m at the IAAF Super Grand Prix in Doha, Qatar, on May 11. Although Samaria could only manage to come fourth in the race, her time of 4 minutes 07,76 seconds was a new Namibian national record, and in fact the fourth time that she had improved the mark this year. After her impressive performances over 1ÃÆ’Æ‘ÀÃ…ÃÆ”šÃ‚ 500m so far this season, Samaria is currently the top athlete over 1ÃÆ’Æ‘ÀÃ…ÃÆ”šÃ‚ 500m in the world. She now heads the World Tour Standings with 22 points, ahead of Viola Kibiwat of Kenya on 20 and Vivian Cheruiyot of Kenya and Lisa Corrigan of Australia on 16 points each. The race in Doha was won by Viola Kibiwat in this year’s fastest time of 4:05,43, followed by Cheruiyot (4:06,65) and Meselech Melkamu of Ethiopia (4:07,52). Samaria Disappointed with 4th Place According to her agent, Marc van Uytvanck, she was a bit disappointed with the result. “It was the first time in five 1ÃÆ’Æ‘ÀÃ…ÃÆ”šÃ‚ 500m races this year that Agnes did not win, so she was a little disappointed – 1ÃÆ’Æ‘ÀÃ…ÃÆ”šÃ‚ 500m tactics are still fairly new to her and she waited a little too long to follow and go with the winner. But it was a good learning lesson for Agnes,” he said. Samaria has now improved the Namibian 1ÃÆ’Æ‘ÀÃ…ÃÆ”šÃ‚ 500m record on four occasions this season. At the end of March, Samaria won the title at the South African National Championships in a new Namibian record time of 4:09,59. Her winning time beat her former record by more than three seconds. On May 5 she won the 1ÃÆ’Æ‘ÀÃ…ÃÆ”šÃ‚ 500m at the Osaka Grand Prix in Japan in a new national record of 4:08,06. Samaria has also excelled in the 800m this season. She won the event at the South African Championships in a time of 2:02,70 and then on April 28 she won the 800m at the IAAF Grand Prix in Dakar, Senegal, in 2:03,81. Her national record over 800m is 1:59,15, which she set at the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester, England. Samaria will return to Namibia on May 16 to train for three weeks before leaving for the European circuit to participate in Oslo, Norway, on June 10. Her main focuses this year will be the All Africa Games in Algeria and the World Athletics Championships in Osaka, Japan.