News26 Dec 2010


2010 - End of Year Reviews – Long Distance, Track

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Richard Mateelong (r) en route to a Continental Cup record in Split. (© Freelance)

Monte CarloIn part six of their annual review, statisticians A. Lennart Julin (SWE) and Mirko Jalava (FIN) continue their look back at the past season with an overview of Long Distance action on the track.

MEN –

Men’s long distance running is missing its star athlete right now. Once again this season, athletes the likes of Haile Gebrselassie and Kenenisa Bekele were nowhere to be seen and no athlete was clearly above the others. In the men’s 5000m the stats also show an extremely tight top high end with the first 20 athletes on the world list within just nine seconds of each other. In the men’s 10,000m just two athletes made it narrowly under 27 minutes with the eight-minute barrier was not breached in the 3000m Steeplechase.

5000m -

In the 5000m Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge, the 2003 World champion from Paris at just 18, was the world leader clocking 12:51.21 in Doha in May. But the rest of Kipchoge’s season wasn’t as glorious and in the end the runner with the most balanced results was Ethiopian Imane Merga. The 22-year-old grabbed two important wins in Oslo and Rome in June and was in the top three in many other Diamond League meets as well.

Perhaps the most impressive 5000m race of the summer came from Kenyan Josephat Menjo, who quite rightly honouring the nine-time Olympic gold medallist, won a gun-to-tape solo effort at the Paavo Nurmi Games in Turku clocking a 12:55.95 personal best. 2007 World champion Bernard Lagat set American records both indoors (13:11.50) and outdoors (12:54.12) and went on to win another important race in Split at the Continental Cup which in just his third outdoor 5000m race of the season.

Two major European countries had their national records broken with Alemayehu Bezabeh lowering the Spanish record below 13 minutes to 12:57.25 in Oslo and Briton Mo Farah to 12:57.94 in Zürich.

Kenya had almost half of the athletes in the world top 100 with a huge 46 entries. Ethiopia had 16 for second and the United States eight for third.

10,000m -

For a long time American Chris Solinsky was the world leader in the men’s 10,000m with his debut 26:59.60 race where he clocked a U.S. record in Stanford on May Day. The 25-year-old, who also lowered his 5000m personal best to 12:55.53 in Stockholm, only raced once over this distance and his performance was one of the best debuts of all time.

But another solo effort by 31-year-old Josephat Menjo in Turku at the Paavo Nurmi Stadium robbed Solinsky off his world leader in late August. Menjo, eighth at the 2007 World Championships over this distance, began with a fast pace again running totally alone with just two other runners in the race. Looking for a 26:40 finishing time, the Kenyan had to surrender a bit of his pace in the latter stages of the race but still clocked a personal best and world leader 26:56.74 in windy conditions.

His compatriot Wilson Kiprop only raced twice, but took wins in the most important 10,000m races of the season - the Kenyan championships and the African Championships.

Kenya had 44 athletes in the world top 100 with Japan following at 23. The United States had eight for the third place.

3000m Steeplechase –

In the men’s Steeplechase several runners were able to close in on the eight-minute mark, but none were able to break it. The first six on the world list went under 8:04 with 25-year-old Kenyan Brimin Kipruto  - no surprise - leading with am 8:00.90 from Paris in July.

The most important meet of the season, the African Championships, was won by Richard Matelong, who had a good run of wins from other important races as well. The 27-year-old won the Kenyan national title as well as the Continental Cup and the Commonwealth Games.

Another Kenyan, the reigning World champion Ezekiel Kemboi, placed in the top three in each of his eight finals of the season winning in Zürich with a season’s best 8:01.74 and placing second at the African champs behind Matelong. Paul Kipsele Koech, also of Kenya, had an impressive second half of the season finishing first or second in five consecutive Diamond League meets clocking a season’s best 8:02.07 in Paris.

The top two Europeans were Frenchmen Mahiedine Mekhissi-Benabbad (PB 8:02.52) and Bouabdellah Tahri (SB 8:03.72) who fought for the gold at the European Championships in Barcelona, with the former emerging as the winner in 8:07.87 in a fast championship race. Young Ugandan, 21-year-old Benjamin Kiplagat also broke to the world elite in this event with an 8:03.81 national record in Lausanne.

Kenya had 24 athletes in the world top 100 with the United States in second at 10 and Spain third with seven entries.

WOMEN -

5000m -

This event has for years been an ongoing battle for supremacy and the World record between fellow Ethiopians Tirunesh Dibaba and Meseret Defar. But this year neither reached the same kind of form displayed in previous years so despite Dibaba winning her three races (all Diamond League) and Defar two of her three they ended up in discreet positions No. 7 and No. 9 on the World list.

The fastest and most prolific Ethiopian this summer was instead Sentayehu Ejigu who won the Shanghai Diamond League and who added four more top-3 finishes in DL races including her 14:28.39 for 2nd in the Paris DL. But the very fastest and most prolific 5000m of the year was not an Ethiopian in 2010 but Kenyan Vivian Cheruiyot who was 5-0 vs Ejigu after finishing 1-2-1 in three Diamond League races and after winning the African Championships and the Continental Cup plus the Commonwealth Games.

The event was - as has been the picture for quite a few years now - dominated by runners from Ethiopia and Kenya (although some of them now represents other nations). On the 2010 world list Portugal's Jessica Augusto in 9th and USA's Molly Huddle in 14th were the only exceptions to that rule among the top-19!

Typically the European Championships were dominated by ex-Ethiopians as Alemitu Bekele and Elvan Abeylegesse took gold and silver for Turkey and at the Asian Games their colleague Mimi Belete was the winner for Bahrain. Talking about Asia: perhaps even as remarkable as the global dominance of the East Africans is the fact that former top nation China this year had no runner in the World top-100.

10,000m -

Sadly the 10,000m is an event almost exclusively contested at championship types of meetings, even more so for women than for men. The only major "open" opportunities provided in 2010 was Stanford (USA) in late March and Ostrava (CZE) in late May.

Not surprisingly the fastest times of the year came in Ostrava where Meselech Melkamu and Pauline Korikwiang helped each other to 31:04.52 and 31:06.29. However, those times are far from impressive. Remember e.g. that Melkamu herself did 29:53 – more than one minute faster – as World leader last year!

Actually the best race of this year quality-wise was the African Championships with Tirunesh Dibaba winning ahead of Melkamu and Kenyan Linet Masai. All three dipped under 32 minutes which considering the high altitude of Nairobi probably is worth about a minute better at sea level. At the European Championships Elvan Abeylegesse had full control winning in 31:10.23 by 12 seconds over Russia's Inga Abitova and by 15 seconds over Portugal's Jessica Augusto.

The most remarkable race, however, was that at the Asian Games which ended in a double victory for India! Internationally previously unheralded Preeja Sreedharan and Kavita Raut improved drastically to 31:50.47 and 31:51.44 holding off all challenges from the previously more accomplished runners from Japan (Fukushi and Yoshimoto) and Bahrain (ex-Ethiopians Eshete and Daba). Was this a sign of an emergence of India as a future global player in women's long distance running?

3000m Steeplechase -

2010 turned out to be an off-year for a majority of the top steeplechase runners of 2009: No less than six of the top-10 in Berlin didn't compete at all this summer. Of course this had a major impact on the international scene but the standards dropped also because the top runners from 2009 that carried on all ran slower in 2010: So eight sub-9:15 last year was reduced to just two in 2010.

The Diamond League was dominated by the Kenyan trio of Milcah Chemos, Gladys Kipkemboi and Lydia Rotich and the Ethiopian Sofia Assefa. Chemos and Assefa ran all seven, Rotich six and Kipkemboi five. The only major opposition they faced was Russia's Yuliya Zarudneva who won in Stockholm and who finished 2nd in London. She also took the Continental Cup title ahead of Chemos and Assefa and struck gold in the European Championships.

But overall the event belonged to Chemos who had an extremely impressive season with four wins and three 2nd places in the DL plus gold medals in Kenyan and African Championships as well as the Commonwealth Games and a 2nd place in the Continental Cup. Summary: 11 major competitions with seven wins and four runner-up positions!

So as said, overall the international Steeplechase year 2010 was very much a below-par year. With the World Championships in 2011 and the Olympic Games in 2012 coming up 2010 will most likely be seen in retrospect as just a temporary glitch in the still ongoing progress of this the youngest of the events in the women's programme.

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