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Kenenisa Bekele didn’t give it another try to get a double gold
medal at the World Championships in Athletics. The Ethiopian 10,000 m
World Champion didn’t compete at the 5,000 m prelims on Thursday. The
world record holder already said after his 10,000 m victory that he
doesn’t want to run the 5,000 m. But it could have happened, as a
couple of times in the past, that his federation would convince him to
run. Now the final will be wide open. It will be a duel between the
Ethiopians and the Kenyans, but there might be a surprise. The
Australian Craig Mottram was in a very good shape recently. The final
is on Sunday, on the last day of the championships.
Kenyan Isaac Songok won the first heat in 13:20.36 minutes in front
of the Ethiopian Tariku Bekele. The brother of Kenenisa ran 13:20.66
while John Kibowen (Kenya/13:21.08) finished third. In the second heat
there was another Kenyan who came first: Eliud Kipchoge, the defending
champion, ran 13:12.86. Second was Craig Mottram in 13:12,93 and
Sileshi Sihine (Ethiopia) finished third (13:13.04).
On a day without any finals in running events, there were also the
800 m prelims on the schedule. Rashid Ramzi (Bahrain), who had won the
1,500 m on the day before, is among the competitors for the chase of
the gold medal. He ran 1:46.17 minutes, which was the fastest time of
the prelims. All the favourites reached the semi finals, which
will be run on Friday.