Shortly after Sureyya Ahyan convincingly won the women’s 1500 metres in Monaco, Elvan Abeylegesse won the women’s 5000m in 14:56.25 for a historical double win for Turkey in a major IAAF competition.
Two times 10,000 Olympic champion Derartu Tulu, who suffered from stomach problems in Paris World Championships which forced her to abandon the race at an early stage, was given a wild card by the IAAF to compete in today’s 5000m race.
Despite being one of the best distance runners in the world the Ethiopian was not automatically qualified for the World Athletics Final as she didn’t have enough scoring performances.
Tulu surprisingly decided to take the lead in the first lap, a feat rare enough to be mentioned. Maybe making sure of setting a decent pace was her way to thank the IAAF for inviting her?
After Tulu’s opening move, Australia’s Benita Johnson led the nine-runner field through the first kilometre in 3:11.52. She continued setting the pace for the first tier of the race – 6:08.14 at 2000m and 12:07.74 at 4000m – before the Africans and former African moved to the front.
Abeylegesse and Tulu launched the finishing sprint with 19-year-old World champion Tirunesh Dibaba, who had so far remained very discreet in the pack, and Werkneseh Kidane close behind.
The fastest finsiher today was Abeylegesse who defeated Tulu by 68 hundredths of a second with the first four athletes - Diababa in 14:57.87 and Kidane in 14:58.13 - finishing in less than two seconds.
Abeylegesse who was an excellent fifth at the World Championships a couple of weeks ago was known as Hewan Abeye when still running wit her native Ethiopian vest.
IAAF - la
