Amazing Ayana shatters record
But Ethiopian denies drugs fuelled blistering 10 000 metres run
OLYMPIC athletics got off to an astonishing start yesterday when Ethiopia’s Almaz Ayana smashed a 23-year-old world record to win the greatest women’s 10 000 metres to date and then had to deny suggestions her perfor mance was fuelled by drugs.
The world 5 000m champion, running only her second 10 000 metres, ripped the field apart to finish in 29 minutes 17.45 seconds, an incredible 14 seconds inside the previously untouchable 29:31.78 set by China’s Wang Junxia in 1993.
Kenya’s world 10 000m champion Vivian Cheruiyot took silver and, though she was far behind, her time of 29:32.53 was still the third-fastest run. Ethiopian Tirunesh Dibaba, the double defending Olympic champion, took bronze.
No woman had gone under 30 minutes in the last seven years, but the first four all did yesterday, and even though the field was spread all over the track, the first 13 finishers ran the best time of their lives, including five national records.
After a bleak year of doping and corruption controversies it should have been an uplifting start to 10 days of athletics but, such was the magnitude of victory, Ayala was immediately forced to deny using performance-enhancing drugs.
“My doping is my training, my doping is Jesus. I am crystal clear,” she said through an interpreter.
Sarah Lahti, who finished 12th in a Swedish record having taken 26 seconds off her own best, questioned Ayala’s performance while marathon world record holder Paula Radcliffe said in commentary for the BBC: “I’m not sure I can understand that.
“When I saw the world record set in 1993, I couldn’t be- lieve what I was seeing. And Ayana has absolutely blitzed that time.”
Doping remained on the agenda away from the track, too, as Bulgarian Silvia Danekova’s positive test for EPO was confirmed.
The 33-year-old, who was due to compete in the women’s 3 000m steeplechase on Monday, denied taking any drugs and blamed her test on her country’s links with Russia.
“I feel robbed emotionally,” she said.
“But we’re coming from the east, we’re too close to Russia.”
Virtually all of Russia’s track and field team have been excluded from the Rio Games following revelations of statebacked doping.
The country’s athletics manager Michael Rotich has already been sent home but he was suspended by the International Association of Athletics Federation’s (IAAF) ethics commission yesterday following allegations of corrupt practices surrounding anti-doping.
The disappointing aspect of the opening morning’s action was the sparse crowd to witness the fireworks.
Briton Jess Ennis-Hill got off to a good start in defence of her heptathlon title with an impressive 12.84 seconds 100m hurdles on a wet track – blue for the first time at the Olympics.
However, she was outshone by compatriot Katerina Johnson-Thompson, who cleared a British high jump record of 1.98 metres to lead after two events.
With Dibaba missing out in the 10 000m, the way is now clear for Valerie Adams to become the first woman to win three successive athletics golds and she needed only one throw of 19.74 to lead the qualifiers for the shot put final.
The other gold medal up for grabs on day one is in the men’s 20km walk. – Reuters