New for old

There was a moment, at the end of that extraordinary 10,000m final last night that seemed to capture something about the first two days of these championships and, who knows, maybe about the championships as a whole.

From Geb to Bekele

As Kenenisa Bekele lengthened his stride and struck for home in the final 200m, moving decisively passed his mentor and inspiration Haile Gebrselassie, he glanced back over his left shoulder, as if taking one final look at the past before pulling away into a new era. Watch this, he seemed to be saying, this is the future.

Gebrselassie, the man regarded by many as the ultimate distance runner, the greatest of all time, had done virtually everything humanly possible to shake off his challenger. But at the end of that incredible second 5000m, run in a blistering 12 minutes 57 seconds, it was the younger man who had the cheetah-like acceleration, the finishing kick that has for so long been the trademark of Ethiopia’s emperor of the track.

“I am Haile’s successor,” declared 21 year-old Bekele at the end. “And it’s a wonderful feeling.”

Call it a changing of the guard, if you like, a swapping of new for old, but maybe the blast of the young guns we’ve seen so far is a pointer for what’s to come over the next seven days.

Geb, wise and gracious as ever in the medallists’ press conference, paid his respects to the changing times, acknowledging that Bekele is “already a remarkable athlete”. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to maintain the same level of performance in the coming years,” he said. “I think I’ll run over longer distances, because even though I’m a good sprinter, I can’t live with athletes like Kenenisa.”

From Barber to Klüft

Bekele’s victory was not the only triumph of youth over experience. For two days we watched open mouthed as Carolina Klüft pushed the boundaries of her own possibilities, and suggested the limits of the Heptathlon could be far off in the distance.

The 20 year-old Swede bounced around like an excitable child on Christmas morning as each new personal best mark (she had five) beamed out from the track side scoreboards. And she clapped with the genuine enthusiasm of a teenager at a school sports day, whenever her closest rivals – especially France’s former champion Eunice Barber, and the Olympic champion Denise Lewis – were rousing the crowd’s support. Yet she had the maturity to hold it all together when disaster threatened in the long jump, pulling out one vital legal effort on her third attempt.

Barber, sitting sullen in her shades and sun hat, could do nothing as the exuberant youth leapt beyond her reach, just as, the previous day, she was left floundering as Kluft powered past her in the 200m and, later, was swept away as Kluft strode away the home straight at the finish of the 800m.

“My only aim is to enjoy myself,” said Kluft afterwards, and you almost believe her. “I’m only 20. Having fun is the only thing that matters.”

An axis shifts

Even in the men’s shot put we saw a new medallist as the Belarussian Andrei Mikhnevich overpowered the names of old such as Bilonog, Nelson and Godina. And when defending champion Derartu Tulu dropped out of the women’s 10,000m it was her compatriot Berhane Adere who moved out of her shadow and strode forward so majestically to take the title, her first at world level.

Perhaps it’s just me, but it feels like one of those years when the axis shifts, and a new set of names comes to dominate the sport. It happened in 1997 in the sprints, when Marion Jones and Maurice Greene first emerged as champions. So, after Kelli White won the women’s 100m last night, in the absence of Jones, and also eclipsing a defending champion in Zhanna Block, who’s to say her training partner Dwain Chambers won’t emerge this evening to replace Greene’s name on the champion’s roll.

Chambers has made many claims over the last few years about becoming “the new sheriff in town”. He’ll have noted last night the erasing of his own World junior record by Trinidad and Tobago’s 18 year-old Darrell Brown

This year Chambers insists he’s the outsider but tonight he could well live up to his quieter prediction that we’ll see the “opening of a new chapter” in the men’s 100m.

A Triple Jump chapter also closes

And, whatever happens in the men’s triple jump, we know one long chapter in that event will come to an end tonight when 37 year-old Jonathan Edwards takes his last ever hop, step and jump down the international runway. Edwards’ world record will doubtless last for a few years yet, but few would bet against his title passing on to another young Swede in the long legged shape of Christian Olsson.

Edwards had hoped to go on until the Olympic Games in Athens 2004. Maybe it was wise of him to tops now. For by then, it will be the young guns of 2003 who will be the ones to beat – out with the old, and on with the new.