News Archive

The Ethiopian Kenenisa Bekele lived up to his role as the favourite.

He won the 10,000 m race at the World Championships in Helsinki in

27:08.33 minutes and defended his title. Two years ago he had won his

first major gold medal at the Paris World Championships where he had

beaten his role model Haile Gebrselassie.  

While Gebrselassie, who prepares for the Amsterdam-Marathon right

now, was not attending the Championchips, another Ethiopian, Sileshi

Sihine, won the silver medal (27:08.87). But the Ethiopians missed the

triple triumph they hoped to achieve. The competitors were stronger

than expected. Kenyan Moses Mosop finished third (27:08.96). And he

almost caught Sihine with a fast final sprint.     

After a relatively slow first half of 13:51.10 minutes a race

developed with a lot of changes in speed. The Ethiopians, who

controlled most of the race, tried to get rid of their competitors.

Repeatedly they increased the pace. But their tactics didn’t work this

time. Even in the final lap seven athletes were still in the leading

group. “I really shivered because it was so thrilling,” said Jos

Hermens, Kenenisa Bekele’s manager from the Netherlands.  

When Kenenisa Bekele took the lead in the final curve he kept it

until the end. The 23 year-old won the sprint. While Sihine got second

Moses Mosop had a strong finish. The fourth place was taken by Boniface

Kiprop (Uganda/27:10.98) while Martin Mathati (Kenya) took the fifth

place. He was the one who always stayed with the Ethiopians when they

increased the pace, and he prevented that the Ethiopians were able to

set off. Juan Carlos de la Ossa (Spain) finished tenth in 27:33.42

minutes. He was the best European.

 „It is hard to keep high speed in the first half of the race

without any pacemaker. That probably was the reason why we didn’t won

three medals”, Kenenisa Bekele said and added: “I am not running the

5,000 metres here.” But it might be possible that the officials of the

Ethiopian federation influence him to compete at the 5000m.

„I came here to run a good race and to win a medal. I knew that the

chance to get the gold medal wasn’t really there but the bronze medal

is superb for me”, 20 year-old Kenyan Moses Mosop said.

In the second final of the evening Docus Inzikuru (Uganda) won the

3000 m steeplechase of the women, which was contested for the first

time at these championships. She clocked 9:18.24 minutes. „I am happy

to have won this medal for Uganda. I had not intended to run in the

lead fort he whole time but on the other hand I prefer running in front

of the others”, Docus Inzikuru said. Russian Yekaterina Volkova was

second with 9:20.49 minutes while Kenya’s Jeruto Kiptum ran a national

record for third place with 9:26.95.

In the semi finals of the 1,500 m Alan Webb (US) ran from the front.

Only at the very end he was overtaken by Rashid Ramzi

(Bahrain/3:34.69). Webb clocked 3:36.07 minutes. Marocco’s Adil Kaouch

won the other semi final with 3:40.51. The final will be on Wednesday.