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2008 Beijing Olympic Preview: Women’s 5000 Meters

Posted August 12th, 2008 at 11:30 AM by Jesse Squire

Section: News & Results, Track & Field, Olympics

Women’s 5000 Meters

The Schedule: heats, Tuesday Aug 19; finals, Friday, Aug 22
The Americans: #6 Shalane Flanagan, #7 Kara Goucher, #12 Jen Rhines
The Contenders: #1 Meseret Defar (ETH), #2 Gulnara Samitova-Galkina (RUS) #3 Tirunesh Dibaba (ETH), #4 Meselech Melkamu (ETH) #5 Sylvia Jebiwott Kibet (KEN), #8 Penina Chepchumba (KEN), #22 Liliya Shobukhova (RUS)
The Stats: Records, 2008 List, 2007 Worlds, 2004 Olympics
The Medal Picks: T&FN - Defar, T Dibaba, Melkamu; SI - T Dibaba, Defar, Jepleting
The Story: While everyone knows the men’s 100 and high hurdles will be great showdowns, this race has been getting short shrift. Too bad, because it’s going to be a great race.

Teammates Dibaba and Defar have owned the long distances for several years. They have not raced each other head-to-head this year, but did appear in separate 3k and 2-mile races in the Reebok Boston Indoor Games. Dibaba broke the 5k World Record in Oslo’s Bislett Games, running 14:11.15; later in the summer, Defar ran 14:12.88 in Stockholm. Both are strong and have withering kicks. It will be a war.

Two Russian runners are big giant ciphers. Samitova-Galkina has been a holy terror in the steeplechase and ran 14:33 at the Russian Championships, but the 5k final would be her fourth race in a week. Even harder to read is Shobukhova, who broke the European Record at the Russian Championships with an amazing solo run of 14:23.75. But her best indoor time was 16:02.24, and got waxed in Boston by US non-Olympians Janelle Deatherage and Lauren Fleshman. Considering the recent doping busts of several other Russian women runners, even the most naive of us might have to raise our eyebrows.

Note: Athletes’ rankings refer to TheFinalSprint.com’s World Points Standings, and medal picks come to us from Track & Field News and Sports Illustrated, respectively.