Mo Farah creates history at Bird’s Nest
View(s):Englishman Mo Farah’s career reached an incredible new height yesterday as he became the first man in history to claim an Olympic and World Championship ‘triple-double’ in the distance events on the penultimate day of the 15th World Athletics Championships here at the Bird’s Nest Stadium in Beijing.
The 32-year-old held his nerve to surge pass the Kenyan Caleb Mwangangi Ndiku to add the 5000m title to the 10000m title he won last Saturday, becoming the first man in history to defend the world championships gold double in long distance races.
Only Ethiopian world record-holder Kenenisa Bekele and his compatriot Haile Gebrselassie has previously won a gold ‘double-double’ in distance running.
Farah has been unbeaten since his gold double at the London Olympics in 2012 and the Moscow World Championshiphis and historic double yesterday will make him one of the world’s greatest distance runners in the history along with Kenensia Bekele and Haile Gebrselassie.
Both Bekele and Gebrelassie have previously won a gold ‘double-double’ in distance running.“Tonight I had to dig it deep as you could see. It came to the last 100m. I felt a bit tired, going through the rounds and come back again,” Farah said after the race. “It is difficult as everybody has got great speed and there are a lot of guys who are capable of winning. The important thing is to win the race and I did it”.
The Commonwealth champion, Ndiku finished second in 13 minutes 51.86 minutes followed by Hagos Gebrhiwet of Ethiopia who clocked 13 minutes 51.86 secs. Meanwhile the American decathlete Ashton Easton established championships first world record when he collected 9045 points to claim gold in the men’s decathlon well ahead of Canadian Damian Warner who finished with 8695 points. Rico Freimuth of Germany settled for the bronze with 8561 points.
The Olympic champion led from the start. He clocked 10.23 in the first event, the 100m and a solid 7.88m in long jump followed by 14.52m in shot put. He then cleared 2.01m in high jump and ended the first day with a world decathlon best of 45.00 in the 400m.
He continued to lead throughout the second day, clocking 13.69 in the 110m hurdles, throwing 43.34m in the discus, clearing 5.20m in the pole vault and throwing 63.63m in the javelin. He then returned a time of 4 minutes17.52 seconds to break the world record and earned a bonus of US$ 100,000.
However, the highlight of the day was the two short sprint relay finals which Jamaicans pipped their closest rivals American with ease to make a clean sweep.
After 100m champion Shelly-Ann Fraser Pryce took Jamaican women’s team to a championship record of 41.07 secs running the last lap, double gold medalist Usain Bolt led the men’s team to the 4×100 title in a world leading 37.36 secs.
The biggest upset however was the power-packed American team who had to hand back the silver they won minutes after doing the victory lap for overstepping the lap. The American were in perfect shape to fight for the gold, having completed the first three laps in quick-time but when Mike Rogers overstep the line before holding onto the baton passed by Tyson Gay cost them the silver.
Host China which established a new Asian record during the qualifying round clocking 37.92 were handed the silver for their 38.01secs. Canada got a surprise bronze in 38.13 secs.
In the women’s relay United State of America placed second in 41.68 secs followed by Trinidad and Tobago who clocked 42.10secs.
Piotr Malachowski of Poland won men’s discus throw gold in 67.40 m, followed by Philip Milanov of Belgium in second place with an effort of 66.90m. In third place was Robert Urbanek of Poland clearing a distance of 65.18m.
In the women’s high jump final Maria Kuhina of Russia with a personal best effort of 2.01 m claimed gold ahead of former two- time world champion Blanka Vlasic. Vlasic cleared the same height as the gold medalist but breaking the bar in the 1.92 barrier once cost her the title. Anna Chicherova was placed third clearing the third height.
Meanwhile defending women’s 800m champion Eunice Sum was pushed to the third place by Marina Arzamsova of Belarus and Melissa Bishop of Canada who won gold and silver in 1 minute 58.03 secs and 1 minute 58.12 secs respectively. The Kenyan clocked 1 minute 58.18 secs to settle for the silver.
Earlier in the day Matej Toth of Slovakia won the men’s 50Km race walk in 3 hours 40.32 seconds. In second place was Jared Tallent of Australia finishing in 3 hour 42.17 while Takayaku Tanii of Japan won bronze in 3 hours 42.55secs.
Today is the final day of the 15th World Championships.