Mutola (right) loses to Cherkasova (left). Amina Ait Hammou is 4th (cent) (© KEYSTONE/Laurent Gillieron)
The defeat of Mozambique’s Maria Mutola, arguably the world’s greatest ever female two lap runner, by the Russian Svetlana Cherkasova in Lausanne on 6 July has been one of the great shocks of this summer season.
On Friday (6 Aug) at the Weltklasse Zurich - TDK Golden League meeting - the World and Olympic 800m champion will for the first time since face her vanquisher again but the challenge in the Letzigrund Stadium will go much deeper than just one athlete.
Mutola, the number one in the IAAF World Event Ranking, who has been nursing a Hamstring injury during this summer, attempted her first comeback after her Lausanne defeat by running a 1500m in the last TDK Golden League meeting in Paris (23 July), and while running a credible time of 4:07.57, she finished a weary dead-last.
However, last Friday (30 July), she was back to winning ways with a confidence boosting 800m win in London in 1:59.17.
Yet, while Mutola looked to have all her old power back as she pulled away down the back straight in London, she tied up badly in the home stretch and was nearly caught by Morocco’s Mina Ait Hammou, who was only 0.17 behind the 800m running legend by the finish line.
“I lost about two weeks training with the Hamstring injury,” Mutola admitted afterwards. “I seem to be coming back to form now and luckily the Olympics is still three weeks away, so I ought to be back to my best by then.”
It shows the stature of Mutola’s illustrious career that we should doubt the fitness of an athlete who can run and win at 800m in a sub-2 minutes time but significantly when she lost in Lausanne she actually ran faster than her London win! Cherkasova pipped her, 1:58.91 to 1:59.06.
So a major question mark still remains as the six time World Indoor champion heads for her fifth Olympic Games. How fit is Mutola?
On Friday, “Million Dollar Mutola” who has won in the Letzigrund Stadium on eleven consecutive occasions, will face the stiffest of tests, as there will be seven women challenging her who have run sub-2 minutes this season.
Cherkasova and Ait Hammou are among these opponents but statistically of greater interest, the pursuing pack includes three of the five women who have run faster that Mutola in 2004 - the Russians, Tatyana Andrianova (1:56.23), Natalya Lavshuk (1:57.45) and Cherkasova (1:57.50).
So the Weltklasse Zurich women’s 800m, which sets off at 20:55hrs local time on Friday night, will be the acid test of whether time really can be a healer in Mutola’s case. Just two weeks later, on Friday 20 August in Athens’ Olympic stadium will commence the first round heats of Mutola’s Olympic title defence. So there is little time to spare in her recovery from injury.
Chris Turner
IAAF Editorial Manager