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Tariku Bekele, Kipchoge Lead 5000m Qualifying
Posted August 30th, 2007 at 12:50 PM by David Monti
Section: News & Results, Track & Field
Tariku Bekele of Ethiopia, the younger brother of Kenenisa, and Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya, won their respective heats of the 5000m as the 11th IAAF World Championships finished its sixth day at Nagai Stadium.
Bekele recorded an improbably slow time of 13:46.42 to win his heat off of a very slow initial pace. Indeed, there was such a large group of athletes still together at the bell that Algeria’s Khoudir Aggoune, Kenya’s Isaac Songok and Joseph Ebuya, and Morocco’s Ahmed Baday were unable to advance to Sunday’s final despite finishing within two seconds of Bekele. Only the top five from each heat automatically qualified for the final.
“I was worried about the weather,” Bekele said in a statement released by the Ethiopian Athletics Federation. “It was very difficult out there and I hope to do well in the final.”
Jesús España of Spain, Bernard Lagat of the USA, Hicham Bellani of Morocco, and Moses Kipsiro of Uganda were the other qualifiers from the first heat. Lagat won the gold medal in the 1500m last night. He chose to celebrate with an ice bath and a pizza before getting to bed to rest up for tonight’s race. The slow pace definitely saved him precious energy.
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Mottram, ‘stronger’ and ‘smarter’, looking ahead to World Champs in Osaka
Posted April 26th, 2007 at 12:01 PM by Bob Ramsak
Section: News & Results
As he begins to piece together his competitive plan on the way to August’s World Championships in Osaka, Craig Mottram believes that it will be an improved, if not new, model that will aim to move him up a notch –or perhaps even two– from his bronze medal finish in the 5000m two years ago.
“I haven’t run quicker,” said the 26-year-old Australian, whose 12:55.76 personal best dates back to 2004, “but I’ve gotten stronger, I’ve gotten smarter, and I’ve got more ammunition. Things I didn’t have at the Olympics in Athens but had in Helsinki. I got better.”
A year after finishing eighth in the 5000m at the 2004 Olympics, Mottram took the bronze at the World Championships in Helsinki in a tactical race, finishing less than 4/10s of a second behind winner Benjamin Limo.
“I got better, I got stronger, but not because of the medal. But just because I’ve had two more years of doing what I love to do: running.”
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