The Stockholm Globe Arena packed to capacity for the 2007 GE Galan (© Hasse Sjögren)
As Kenenisa Bekele said at the press conference, “it takes a really special day to set a new world record.” But the 2007 GE Galan – IAAF indoor permit – meeting in the Stockholm Globe Arena on Tuesday night (20) proved that it doesn't take World records to have a very special day of athletics.
Three new world indoor season leading marks on the oval track and wins for all the six Swedish European champions of last summer certainly made the sell-out crowd of 10,500 leave the arena in such a positive mood that they probably hardly noticed the snowy and icy cold that had taken the grip upon the Swedish capital.
Bekele – full out effort improves his 3rd best place on all-time list
Kenenisa Bekele at 3000m was looking for not just the top mark of the year but also the World record and while he got the first he did miss the second objective, however, not due to lack of trying. Rather Bekele produced an extraordinary piece of running as he – following the pacesetters – was over five seconds behind Daniel Komen's split at 1000m (2:32.3 vs 2:27.0) only to have drawn level at 2000m (5:00.3 vs 5:00.0)!
That burst of speed at mid-race however proved somewhat costly and despite the vociferous support from the crowd – which of course included a highly visible Ethiopian contingent – Bekele was not able to speed up further to match Komen's incredible 2:24.9. But a 2:30.2 is much more than just respectable and the final time of 7:30.51 was a new PB strengthening the Ethiopian's hold of the No 3 place on the World All-Time list.
Impressive finish by Choge garners 3:33.79 win
Also in the men's 1500m the pacing plan was set up to lay the foundation for an attack on the World indoor record with Daniel Kipchirchir Komen being the man expected to mount the final attack. 55.6 – 1:53.4 was a sufficient opening but in the third quarter another two seconds were lost before the race was finished off just as fast Hicham El Guerrouj was in his 3:31.18 ten years ago.
However, it was not Komen but his Kenyans compatriot Augustine Choge that provided that impressive finish leading to 3:33.79, a mere 0.10 off Komen's world leading time this year and lifting Choge to position No 8 on the World All-time list indoors. Finishing third in the race Bahrain's Bilal Mansour Ali set a new Asian indoor record 3:36.28.
Chojecka ‘powerful’ in women’s 1500
The phrase "impressive finish" was just as – or perhaps even more – applicable to the women's 1500m race where Lidia Chojecka demonstrated the same change of gears as in Karlsruhe nine days ago. Chojecka's elegant and at the same time powerful stride over the last two laps brought her a new world leading time of 4:03.73 as she won going away from Helen Clitheroe (PB 4:05.81), Sonja Roman (PB 4:06.75) and Hilary Stellingworth (PB 4:09.96).
Bungei and colleagues re-write season bests
How conducive to fast middle distance running the Stockholm track is was also proven by the men's 800m race which completely re-wrote the 2007 world list: The top-4 in the race - Wilfred Bungei 1:45.42, Amine Laalou 1:45.96, Bram Som 1:46.12 and Arnaud Okken 1:46.63 – now occupy the top-4 spots on the world list. When pacesetter Ismael Kombich (51.1 for 400m) stepped off the track it was European Champion Som that continued to push the pace but over the last 100 metres Bungei still had everything completely under control.
Bergqvist - confidence boost
Despite all those fireworks on the running oval it was still what was going-on on the infield that caught most of the attention from the crowd – we were after all in the capital of "The land of high jumpers". The women's competition featured all reigning outdoor champions: Olympic Yelena Slesarenko, World Kajsa Bergqvist and European Tia Hellebaut.
However Croatian Blanka Vlasic provided the most impressive jumping: While the other three had their shares of failures – Slesarenko one at 1.89 and three at 1.95, Bergqvist two at 1.95 and Hellebaut one each at 1.84 and 1.95 – Vlasic had four straight first-time clearances when the bar was raised to 1.98. Perhaps that made her too confident and she decided to pass 1.98 – a decision that proved fatal.
Because although Hellebaut, apparently not fully recovered from her flu last week, went out at that height Bergqvist after struggling most of the evening finally produced a glimpse of her old magic and – to the delight of her hometown crowd – cleared 1.98 with a wide margin on her third attempt. Suddenly Vlasic needed 2.00 to regain her lead, but that was not happen this evening. Even though the first attempt by the Croatian was the best at that height neither she nor Bergqvist had any success. So the win was Kajsa's, a very important boost to her confidence with the European Indoors coming up in less than two weeks.
Holm ‘seriously’ attempts 2.41m
Despite the competitiveness the female high jumpers were once more this winter outshone by their male colleagues: When the bar was raised to 2.33 three jumpers still had perfect records! Those three were the expected main contenders, i.e. the arena record holder Yaroslav Rybakov and the Swedish duo of Stefan Holm and Linus Thörnblad.
2.33 turned out to be the crucial height as Rybakov and Linus Thörnblad missed their first attempts narrowly while Holm added another "o" on his score card. Holm's way of executing height after height had a professional touch of "clinical precision": Full concentration and just enough "power" put into the take-off to guarantee a safe margin to the bar.
Neither Rybakov (who didn't take his third attempt) nor Thörnblad had any success at 2.33 and having already secured the win Holm decided to raise the bar to .... 2.41! All three attempts were "serious" and at least one of them should be deemed "decent". His own explanation to going directly from 2.33 to 2.41 was also very simple and "clinical":
“I had won the competition and having done just five jumps I felt I had quite a lot of power left in my legs. So it was perfect day to try for 2.41, you never get many opportunities to attempt such a height when still feeling fresh,” said Holm.
‘Another day at the office’ for Olsson
While the Swedish high jumpers impressed it became something of "another day at the office" for their triple jumping compatriot Christian Olsson. Without really getting in perfect harmony with the runway he had the four longest jumps of the competition including 17.23 and 17.26 to win by close to half a metre. Somewhat surprisingly 2nd place was grabbed by Ukrainian Viktor Yastrebov whose 16.84 in the last round lifted him past Osniel Tosca and David Giralt, the new generation of Cuban triple jumpers.
Robles and Kallur dominate
The hurdle races went completely according to plan as World leaders Dayron Robles and Susanna Kallur took care of all opposition. Robles grabbed the lead immediately and won by 0.13 in 7.48, just 0.06 off Colin Jackson's arena record. Kallur, in her first race for two and a half weeks, had a little cautious start but caught Canadian early leaders Priscilla Lopes and Perdita Felicien halfway through and won going away with almost a metre in 7.94.
Klüft scares herself and the crowd but takes win
In the special Triathlon of 60m Hurdles, High Jump and 400m overwhelming favourite Carolina Klüft scared everybody including herself in the opening event. After an explosive start she suddenly hesitated approaching the first hurdle, stutter stepped, and despite clearing the hurdle she had completely lost all momentum. But her extraordinary competitive instinct made her still go on to finish the race – albeit losing some quarter of a second to Karen Ruckstuhl and Denisa Scerbova.
Corresponding to some five centimetres in the upcoming High Jump, normally one of her strongest events, it still was no catastrophe. However, in the High Jump history repeated itself as Klüft had obvious problem judging her run-up to the bar and she had lots of aborted run-ups and stutter stepping and had to settle for just 1.79, the same height as Ruckstuhl who thus remained in the lead going into the 400m.
To win overall Klüft would need to run some 1.2-1.3 seconds faster and once more her competitiveness surfaced. Pushing the pace from the front she went through 200m in 25.3 and in the second half of the second lap gaps quickly developed behind her: 53.63 vs 55.28 for Ruckstuhl meant that despite having"disasters" in the first two events Klüft still got the overall win.
But with the European Championships coming up in less than two weeks the sudden and unexpected problems with judging the distance to the Hurdles and the High Jump bar must be solved quickly. Physically she had felt in good form but in the arena she had experienced problems seeing the objects she should clear.
Wissman completes parade of home victors
Also the 6th Swedish medallist from Gothenburg last summer – 200m runner Johan Wissman – won his event this evening. But his event now is double the distance – 400m. Despite his lack of international experience as a 400m-runner Wissman just like in Birmingham three days ago tactically acted like an experienced veteran. He used his speed to get pole position going into the second lap and there he fought off all attacks
Talking about "pole positions" the fight this winter for supremacy between Czech vaulters Pavla Rybova and Katerina Badurova saw a another intense installment. Both cleared 4.58 on first attempts and then tried would-be national record 4.68. Neither managed to clear that height so Badurova did keep the record (4.65 last week) although she lost the competition, as she didn't have the same clean sheet leading up to 4.58 as Rybova.
Lennart Julin for the IAAF
Click here for FULL RESULTS
