Dibaba and Rudisha storm to golds
Bolt and Gatlin stroll into 200m semi-finals
BEIJING: Genzebe Dibaba destroyed the 1,500 metres field, David Rudisha returned to the top of the podium in the 800m and Usain Bolt started the quest for a 10th career title with a 200m evening jog at the world championships yesterday.
Ethiopian Dibaba had enough of a tactical and slow race after 700m and she moved to the front and never looked back, steadily raising the pace for an untroubled victory.
Kenya’s Rudisha, who had missed the 2013 worlds with injury, led from start to finish to add the gold to his world title from 2011 and Olympic gold from 2012.
Greg Rutherford of Britain completed his title collection with long jump gold, Kenya’s Nicholas Bett won the 400m hurdles and the women’s discus gold went to Cuban season leader Denia Caballero.
Bolt, meanwhile, ran hard through the bend of his 200m heat before easing up early on the home stretch to win in 20.28 seconds.
Competing in the next heat in the same lane three, American Justin Gatlin was as untroubled as he clocked 20.19 seconds to reach today’s semis, with the final set for tomorrow.
Bolt pipped Gatlin by one hundredth of a second on Sunday in the blue riband 100m final which had implications far beyond their regular rivalry as Bolt is the face of athletics while Gatlin has served two doping bans.
“It is good to win the first one. The 200m mean a lot to me. I am a little worried about my fitness. I am tired and my legs are still sore,” said Bolt, who had to give all he had to win the 100m.
Gatlin, who won a 100m/200m double at the 2005 worlds, said: “The 100m final was a very difficult race for me, also emotionally. I made some mistakes at the end of the race. But now I am going for the 200m.”
Dibaba was in a league of her own in the deciding stages of the 1,500m and started celebrating well before crossing the finish line in 4 minutes 8.09 seconds.
Faith Kipyegon took silver for Kenya in 4:08.96 and Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands got bronze in 4:09.34.
Dibaba, the sister of multiple world and Olympic champion Tirunesh Dibaba, made big waves when she bettered the world record to 3:50.07 minutes little over a month ago.
“I am happy to win this gold medal for my country. My sister won gold in this stadium at the [2008] Olympics so I wanted to share this family experience,” Dibaba said.
“I had a lot of confidence in this race because I told myself ‘I am the record holder.’”
Rudisha was as impressive as Dibaba as he led all the way in trademark style in the 800m, getting gold in 1:45.84.
Adam Kszczot grabbed silver for Poland in 1:46.08 and Amel Tuka took a first ever medal for Bosnia-Herzegovina at the worlds, securing bronze in 1:46.30.
Rutherford added the worlds gold to his Olympic, European and Commonwealth Games titles with 8.41m. Fabrice Lapierre took silver for Australia with 8.24m and Wang Jianan, one of three Chinese in the long jump final, earned bronze with 8.18m to the delight of the crowd.
Bett gave Kenya a first ever 400m hurdles gold with a world leading 47.79 seconds in an event which had seen many favourites exit in the earlier rounds.
Denis Kudryavtsev lowered his personal best a third time in as many Beijing races to take silver in a Russian record 48.05, and bronze medallist Jeffrey Gibson ran a Bahamas record 48.17.
Caballero shocked the opposition with an opening round throw of 69.28 metres for her first major career title in the women’s discus.
Defending and Olympic champion Sandra Perkovic of Croatia salvaged silver with a final attempt of 67.39m in what was only her sixth defeat in 47 events over the last four years. Germany’s Nadina Mueller got bronze with 65.53m.