Kenenisa Bekele of Ethiopia runs in joy after winning the men's 10,000-metre event yesterday. - AP
BEIJING (AP):
AS JAMAICA dominated the sprints over the weekend, Ethiopia completed a similar sweep in the 10,000, with Kenenisa Bekele adding the men's title on top of Tirunesh Dibaba's win to show they are the world's greatest long-distance runners.
Bekele won his second straight Olympic title in a 1-2 Ethiopian triumph, ahead of eternal runner-up Sileshi Sihine.
All-time great Haile Gebrselassie finished only sixth in his last 10,000, well behind bronze medalist Micah Kogo of Kenya.
"My bullet is finished," Gebrselassie said of his faded kick.
Now Bekele will go for a long-distance double in the 5,000.
In the 1,500, world champion Bernard Lagat was eliminated in the semi-finals, finishing sixth in his race with only five getting a guaranteed spot. On best time, he missed out by .02 seconds.
Lagat was chasing a 1,500-5,000 double but now only has his least favourite event left to make amends.
It was a bad day for United States track, with China extending their lead in the overall gold medal standings to 35-19.
Boost for russia
Russia got a boost when Gulnara Galkina-Samitova set the second world record in as many days at the Olympic track, running the first sub-nine minute women's steeplechase in history to take the gold. The Russian steadily stretched the field with her long, elegant stride until she was all alone and only had the clock to beat.
She did so, too, improving her own world record to 8:58.81. While Bolt's 100 record came in the most fabled event, Galkina-Samitova got hers in the Olympic debut of the 3,000-metre steeplechase. Eunice Jepkorir of Kenya took silver, almost nine seconds back, edging another Russian, Ekaterina Volkova.
Like Bekele, triple jumper Francoise Mbango Etone of Cameroon defended her title. She won with the second-longest jump in history, 15.39m - just 11 centimetres off the world record.
Mbango came back this season after spending most of 2006 and 2007 off the circuit because of injuries, lack of motivation and motherhood. She lost 30 kilogrammes before coming back to her competition weight of 63 to make the difference Sunday. "I was fat like this," she said, holding out her hands well beyond her current lean contours.
Two-time world champion Tatyana Lebedeva of Russia, the bronze medallist in Athens, was second at 15.32 and Hrysopiyi Devetzi of Greece, who got silver at home in 2004, collected bronze at 15.23.
Tested positive
Casting an early pall, however, reigning women's 400m hurdles champion Fani Halkia of Greece tested positive for a banned drug and will not defend her title.
The International Olympic Committee confirmed yesterday that Halkia tested positive for a steroid at a Greek athletics team training camp in Japan before coming to Beijing.
She was the second track athlete to test positive during the IOC's Beijing anti-doping programme, after the Bulgarians announced that middle-distance runner Daniela Yordanova had withdrawn after testing positive for testosterone.
Early on Sunday, a 38-year-old mother Constantina Tomescu-Dita of Romania won the marathon, beating reigning world champion and pre-race favourite Catherine Ndereba of Kenya.
After months of trepidation that pollution would be a major factor during the marathon, Sunday's weather proved it was not.
"The weather helped me a lot," said Tomescu-Dita, the 2005 world championship bronze medalist. "I'm very happy because it's not very, very hot," she said of the 23 degrees Celsius (73 degrees F) conditions. Home favourite Zhou Chunxiu took bronze, producing the first medal for China in the track programme.
