Our Athlet's Victory Videos in Edinburgh-Kenenisa

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Younger sister leads the way - Edinburgh 2008

Edinburgh, Scotland - Sunday, 30 March 2008
There was a familiar name on the vest and a familiar smile on the face of Genzebe Dibaba as she bounced down the final, muddy slope of the three-lap course at Edinburgh’s Holyrood Park this afternoon and sped across the line to become the 2007 World Junior Cross Country champion emulating her older sister Tirunesh who won the title in 2003.

“I expected to get a medal but I didn’t expect to win,” said the delighted 17-year-old after adding a fifth World Cross gold medal to the Dibaba family’s growing collection.

“My sister gave me good advice before the race,” she said of Tirunesh, who just one hour later regained the senior title she’d won in 2005 and 2006.

Indeed, her much-honoured sister would have been rightly proud of the way Genzebe claimed victory. After sitting just behind the leaders for much of the 6km race, Dibaba pounced to the front only in the final stages of the last lap, attacking Kenya’s Irene Cheptai up the steep climb of Haggis Knowe, the round, rocky hillock that forms part of this picturesque course about 400m from the finish.

Cheptai, who had attempted to break away on the final lap, chased hard but had no answer to the Ethiopian’s surge as Dibaba sprinted past the grandstand and crossed the line in 19:59 with Cheptai second just five seconds slower.

Dibaba’s teammate Emebt Etea made up for her distastrous experience in Mombasa 12 months ago when she was stretchered from the course suffering from heat exhaustion. The 18-year-old grabbed the bronze two seconds behind Cheptai.

With Emebet Bacha in fifth place and Betelhem Moges in seventh, Ethiopia regained the team title from Kenya for the first time since 2004. It was quite some redemption after 2007 when a clutch of Ethiopians miss calculated the laps and ended up “only” with the bronze medal.

For Dibaba, who finished fifth last year, it was less a redemption than the start of a new chapter in a highly successful family saga as she followed Tirunesh and Ejagayou, the eldest of the three, in the ranks of the world’s best.

“I have looked up to my sisters for so so long. I am very happy to be like them,” said Dibaba.

Indeed, the familiarity was uncanny as Genzebe executed her victory in a style that’s become all to familiar to Tirunesh’s rivals over recent years. Always in touch but never in front, Genzebe followed a large pack that carefully negotiated its way round the muddy track through the first, shorter lap of the course.

While it was no surprise to see a mass of Kenyans and Ethiopians at the front it was Australia’s Tamara Carvolth who led in the early stages with Kenya’s Mercy Kosgei, last year’s silver medallist and one of the favourites, just on her shoulder.

But it wasn’t to be Kosgei’s day. When five Kenyans pushed on in front through the second lap, their red and black vests spread across the narrow track, Kosgei wasn’t among them. Perhaps she, like many others, was having trouble negotiating the tight, slippy corners of the course.

Three athletes fell as they approached the hill for the first time and there were other spillages later. At the end of the second lap Kosgei was well off the pace as six Kenyans and six Ethiopians led three Japanese into the final circuit.

It was only with half a lap to go that the Ethiopians pushed to the fore with Etea leading the charge and Dibaba, as ever, just off the pace.

Cheptai made her move as they came to the hill for the last time and at first it looked decisive. But Genzebe had a family trademark, the Dibaba finish, up her sleave.

She leapt past her Kenyan rival on the steepest part of the slope and in a flash was away and gone, around the hill and down past the Ethiopian flags.

“After the first two laps were over, it was only on the third lap I realised I could win,” said Dibaba. “The weather was good today.”

Etea also had good reason to be pleased with the conditions. “Mombasa was very tough last year, it was very hot and I was very ill,” she said. “It took me about three months to recover.

“Today it was comfortable and I am very happy to bring Ethiopia the gold.”

Dibaba sisters make it a family affair – Edinburgh 2008

Edinburgh, Scotland - As inspiration goes it takes some beating. Only minutes after becoming the most successful woman in the history of the IAAF World Cross Country Championships Tirunesh Dibaba stood in the flapping white tent that served as a media/athlete mixed zone in Edinburgh’s Holyrood Park and insisted it wasn’t her own victory that had painted the broad, joyful smile on her mud-spotted 22-year-old face.

What does it mean to win your third World Cross Country long course title, she was asked? “Yes, I am very happy to win again,” she replied. “But I am more happy about my sister than I am about myself.”

Just an hour before Dibaba had defied the doubters by winning her fifth individual World Cross Country gold, her 17-year-old sister Genzebe had sprung a surprise by winning the junior women’s title, emulating her older sister’s victory from 2003, the first of Tirunesh’s eight-medal haul.

For Genzebe it was her first major honour of any kind and an immediate inspiration to Tirunesh who was watching, nervously, from the sidelines. Indeed, she was meant to be warming up for her own race, but the anxiety proved too much and Tirunesh neglected her own preparations as her sister snatched an unexpected gold and set Ethiopia on the way to a record-breaking day.

“No, I didn’t warm up a lot,” said Tirunesh. “I was watching Genzebe’s race and I was very anxious for her, more anxious than I was for myself.

“I am so happy now that we have both won golds, but I am more happy for her than I am for me.”

The Dibaba sisters may have become the first athletes from the same family to win gold medals at these championships, but neither was assured of victory until the final stages of their races. Indeed, they adopted strikingly similar race tactics.

Both spent the early laps hanging off the lead but never losing touch with the front runners. Both made their strikes on the final climb around the one testing hill on the Holyrood Park course, known to natives of Edinburgh as Haggis Knowe. And both produced unmatchable bursts of speed from the summit to take them clear of their rivals.

What’s more, after finishing fifth last year in Mombasa, when she and two of her teammates miscounted the laps, Genzebe wasn’t even favourite for her event, while Tirunesh’s form and fitness were in doubt after unsolved stomach problems had caused her to cancel much of her 2007 track season.

Incredibly, according to officials from the Ethiopian team, she was still only 75 per cent fit coming in to today’s race. “The stomach was all right today,” she said. “In the middle of the race I did begin to feel it but it slowly went away, so maybe it’s not like in the past.”

Afterwards, with the doubts truly laid to rest, both sisters were eager to give each other credit for their wins.

For Genzebe, it was Tirunesh’s “very good” pre-race advice that held the key, while for Tirunesh it was the thought of her sister’s win that spurred her into one last heroic effort at the end of her gruelling, and compelling, 8km race.

“It was partly in order to match her (Genzebe’s) achievement that I dug in and put everything I had into winning,” she said.

Back in Ethiopia they actually compete for different clubs – Genzebe for the Muger Cement Sports Club and Tirunesh for the Prisons Police – but they do often train together, along with their older sister, Ejagayou, the Olympic 10,000m silver medallist. They also plan to come together in the same club later this year.

“Genzebe is so young and talented,” said Dibaba of her younger sister. “In time I expect she’ll become even stronger and quicker than me.”

But for the Dibabas the habit of winning World Cross Country titles runs even further back in the family. Derartu Tulu, the champion in 1995, 1997 and 2000, is their cousin and Tirunesh was also keen to pay respects to the first great lady of Ethiopian distance running.

“I am aware that my cousin has won this race three times, so I’m very happy to have done the same thing,” she said.

For Tirunesh, today’s victory was something of a redemption after she was beaten last year in the heat of Mombasa by the Dutchwoman Lornah Kiplagat when chasing a third consecutive gold. It was a tough year for Ethiopia as a whole and Tirunesh was clearly motivated this afternoon by the need to put things right.

“Last year, as individuals and as a team we didn’t do well,” she said. “This year we redeemed ourselves. We have been preparing for a long time. Cross country is very important to us and we wanted to bring a strong team and do very well here.”

Well and truly redeemed on the grass, now Dibaba will aim to match her cousin again, on the track, by becoming the Olympic 10,000m champion. “I expect to do well,” she said of the Beijing Olympics this August.

Perhaps she should make sure Genzebe races as well – just for the inspiration.

Ethiopia romp home to their first ever sweep of all four individual golds – Edinburgh 2008

Edinburgh, Scotland - Sunday March 2008
The heat of Mombasa is now but a memory, a nightmare of course, in the history of Ethiopian distance running.

In cold, occasionally rainy and blustery conditions in Edinburgh’s Holyrood Park at this afternoon’s 36th IAAF World Cross Country Championships it was not just a climatic differences between the previous and current venues of these championships which were noticeable but competitive ones too.

In Kenya last year the women’s senior team title had been the only success for the green vested runners from the Ethiopian highlands otherwise they had been routed by their Kenyan hosts, Eritrea’s Zersenay Tadese and the Netherlands’ Lornah Kiplagat.

Had it just been the heat of the Indian Ocean coastal city which had defied Kenenisa Bekele, Tirunesh Dibaba and their compatriots?

Whatever the reason Ethiopian flags were enthusiastically unfurled over the course in Holyrood Park today as a large expat community among an estimated overall crowd of over 20,000 spectators, celebrated their country's first ever sweep of the four indivdual race titles in the slippery muddy conditions of the heavily rain and wind swept grass circuit.

The last time such a feat had been achieved was 1994 when Kenya’s William Sigei (Men), Hellen Chepngeno (Women), Philip Mosima (Jnr men) and Sally Barsosio (Jnr Women) occupied all the top steps of the World Cross Country podium.

Ethiopia’s Kenenisa Bekele, Tirunesh Dibaba, Ibrahim Jeilan and Genzebe Dibaba will now be lauded in Addis Ababa on their return home.

Kenya will be relieved to have pulled together team victories ahead of their foes in the senior and junior men’s race but this was redemption day time for Ethiopia’s Mombasa defeated who surprise, surprise, secured the other two team titles.

One could almost describe the day as ‘normal service resumed’ had the Ethiopian performance not in itself been unique in the annals of their all ready illustrious history at the World Cross Country Championships.

Haile Wins Half Marathon in Lisbon

Lisbon, Portugal - Haile Gebrselassie dominated the EDP Lisbon Half Marathon from the start and made a solitary race after the 10th kilometre en route to his victory in 59:15 In the women’s field the race had a emotional finish with Kenyan Salina Kosgei achieving her third victory in Lisbon.

Near the 5 km race (in an official time of 14:00 min) Haile, with the Kenyans Charles Kamathi and Robert Cheuiyot, took the lead from a small group, but from the 10th kilometre, the Ethiopian ran alone, without “rabbits”, and so, the split times where below the requirements for an attack on the World record. With 27:59 (10 km) and 42:03 (15 km), Gebrselassie struggled for the mark, and along with it, a 50,000 euros bonus.

Haile said: "I tried to push myself for a better performance but I couldn’t do better. It’s a little bit hot, I’m feeling well, but I couldn’t achieve my goal. It’s no excuse, but I’m a litlle bit worried about my father’s health. I’m in good shape and I can’t tell why I couldn’t run faster.”

Behind him, the battle for second place was very tough, with Cheruiyot (six times on the podium in Lisbon without a victory) passing his compatriot Kamathi in the final metres.

Surprising with a fourth place showing was Samuel Karanja (1:01:52), ahead of the first Portuguese runner, Eduardo Henriques (1:02.08), who will turn 40 next week and who is preparing to compete at the upcoming IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Edinburgh, a few weeks after taking the Portuguese title.

Among the top ten runners, Portugal saw four runners, a strong position for them, ahead of well-known runners as Jaouad Gharib (10th), Nixon Kiprono (9th), and others.

Third victory for Kosgei

If, in the men’s race, Gebrselassie grabbed the lead and dominated the race, among the women, the title was in “game” during the entire race. All the favourites ran together, respecting each other’s form, and only in the last metres was everything solved with Salina Kosgei achieving her third title, after the wins in 2005 and 2006.

In the final “sprint”, Kosgei gained two seconds on her countrywomen Pamela Chepchumba, the 2007 World Road Running Championships bronze medalist, and to Souad Aït Salem of Algeria who both finished with the same time of 1:09:59.

Off the podium, but very close, were the Ethiopians Berhane Adere and Tigist Tufa, who had impressed with a personal best, and Atsede Habtamu who finished sixth, under 1:11, as did Briton Jo Pavey, who was seventh in 1:10.39, also a personal best.

Among the Portuguese, Inês Monteiro was the best, in 11st place, with 01:12:33.

All performances of the elite athletes can be considered because the entire course was flat and measured in accordance with IAAF rules. The conditions were a little bit on the hot side, without wind.

António Manuel Fernandes for the IAAF

Leading Results -
Men:
1. Haile Gebrselassie ETH 59.15
2. Charle Kamathi KEN 1:00.45
3. Robert Kipkoech Cheruiyot KEN 1:00.50
4. Samuel Karanja KEN 1:00.52
5. Eduardo Henriques POR 1:02.10
6. Manuel Damião POR 1:03.07
7. Paulo Gomes POR 1:03.20
8. Hermano Ferreira POR 1:03.22

Women:
1. Salina Kosgei KEN 1:09.57
2. Pamela Chepchumba KEN 1:09.59
3. Souad Aït Salem ARG 1:09.59
4. Berhane Adere ETH 1:10.01
5. Tigist Tufa ETH 1:10.03
6. Atsede Habtamu ETH 1:10.15
7. Jo Pavey GBR 1:10.39
8. Madai Perez MEX 1:11.02

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Tariku Bekele Wins Men's 3,000 in Valencia

Sunday, 09 March 2008 Men's 3000m

It shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone that the first time a major global title would be transferred between siblings, that the family name would be Bekele. With a dominating second half performance Tariku Bekele succeeded older broth Kenenisa as World Indoor 3000m champion.

Tariku, sixth behind his brother two years ago in Moscow, played the favourite’s role admirably, biding his time in the race’s first half before taking control over the second en route to a convincing 7:48.23 victory.

Kenyan Paul Kipsiele Koech, who took command of the race in the early stages, held on to finish a distant second in 7:49.05.

“It was a very good race,” said Bekele, who arrived in Valencia as the world leader at 7:31.09, notably, faster than his brother this year. “Winning is not easy but I have been training hard. My tactic was to run really fast during the last kilometre.”

Kipsiele Koech, better known as a steeplechase specialist, took control from the gun, followed by Ethiopian No. 2 Abrahem Cherkos, with Bekele and Australian Craig Mottram tucking in behind. Little changed by 1000m, with the field running as a fairly solid pack.

The order remained with 800m to go, but the pack was beginning to spread out, with Koech still in the lead, and Bekele ready to pounce.

He took the lead with two laps to go, with Koech, Cherkos, Mottram and Edwin Soi struggling to hang on. With Soi and Mottram dropping back, the medals and finishing order were already decided.

“I’m happy because I won a medal,” said Kipsiele Koech. “I expected to at least get something.”

Cherkos, only 18, followed Koech across the line to take bronze (7:49.96) in his first World Championships appearance, followed by Soi (7:51.60) and further back, Mottram (7:52.42).

“This is very good for the Ethiopian team,” Cherkos understated. “We are very strong runners.”

Bekele’s victory was the fifth in the event for Ethiopia. Boding well for Bekele is that he not only succeeds his brother, but also three-time winner Haile Gebrselassie as well.

Gebrselassie opts out of marathon in Olympics!

Haile Gebrselassie says he will not run in the marathon at the 2008 Beijing Olympics because of the city's air pollution levels.

The marathon world record holder suffers from asthma and missed the 2007 London Marathon because of the problem. The 34-year-old will now try to qualify for Ethopia in the 10,000m at Beijing. "The pollution in China is a threat to my health and it would be difficult for me to run 42km in my current condition," Gebrselassie told Reuters.

"But I am not pulling out of the Olympic event in Beijing all together. I plan to participate in the 10,000 m event."

The International Olympic Committee has voiced concerns over the issue of air pollution in Beijing.

If contingency measures do not have the desired affect then endurance events could be delayed for a few hours or rescheduled for another day.

Last year Britain's Paula Radcliffe called in pollution experts to help her plans to run in the Games marathon.

At the time her husband and manager Gary Lough told BBC Sport that Radcliffe, who suffers from exercise-induced asthma, may have to change her medication in China.

"She may have to adapt her doses or medication but as long as we've done enough research and thought about it, it hopefully won't be an issue," he said.

"There's no point in us being especially concerned, because pollution's not really something you can control."(BBC)

Meseret Defar Completes hat-trick in Indoors Compitition

VALENCIA, Spain (Reuters) - Ethiopian long distance specialist Meseret Defar and Russian pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva won their third consecutive world indoor titles on Saturday.

Defar produced a devastating last-lap burst to see off compatriot Meselech Melkamu and complete a hat-trick in the women's 3,000 metres, while Isinbayeva claimed her third indoor gold with a leap of 4.75 metres in the pole vault.

Jennifer Stuczynski of the United States also cleared 4.75 but had to settle for silver on the countback while Brazilian Fabiana Murer took the bronze.

Olympic and world 5,000 champion Defar ran a near perfect race, biding her time as she tucked in behind the leaders in the early stages and stepped up a gear just before the last lap to win in eight minutes 38.79 seconds ahead of Melkamu.

Morocco's Meriem Alaoui Selsouli was third and Kenya's Sylvia Kibet finished fourth.

"Today it was an easy race for me, because of that I didn't have to run too fast," Defar told reporters. "It's excellent preparation for the Beijing Olympics (in August)."

Sweden's Stefan Holm went one better than Defar to notch his fourth indoor world title in the men's high jump.

As expected the contest was a duel between reigning champion Yaroslav Rybakov and Holm. The 31-year-old Swede won with a clearance of 2.36 metres while the Russian only managed 2.34.

"It's a fact as I get older it gets a bit harder to win medals," said Holm. "But I'm really satisfied with my title and I'm still motivated."


MEKONNEN REINSTATED

Ethiopia's Deresse Mekonnen had an anxious wait before finally being adjudged to have won the men's 1,500 metres.

He crossed the line first in 3 minutes 38.23 but was initially disqualified for stepping off the track after colliding with New Zealander Nicholas Willis.

However, the appeals jury decided the Ethiopian was not at fault and he was later reinstated as the winner while Willis remained disqualified.

Kenya's Daniel Kipchirchir Komen took silver and Juan Carlos Higuero pipped fellow Spaniard Arturo Casado to take the bronze.

There were surprises in the men's and women's 60 metres hurdles with hot favourites Dayron Robles and Susanna Kallur making early exits.

Robles went out in the first round after being left on his blocks when the 21-year-old Cuban thought rival Liu Xiang had made a false start.

Swedish world record holder Kallur withdrew from the semi-finals of the women's event after suffering a hamstring injury in the warm-up.

Liu took advantage of Robles' absence to add the indoor title to his Olympic and outdoor crowns with victory in 7.46 seconds, while 37-year-old Allen Johnson crossed in second to add a silver to his extensive medal haul.

Yevgeniy Borisov of Russia and Latvia's Stanislavs Olijars were awarded joint bronze medals after they could not be separated in the photo finish.

Lolo Jones took gold in the women's hurdles in 7.80 seconds ahead of fellow American Candice Davis and Cuba's Anay Tejeda.

World outdoor triple jump champion Yargelis Savigne added the indoor crown to her collection. The Cuban snatched victory from Olympic silver medallist Hrysopiyi Devetzi of Greece with a final leap of 15.05 metres. Slovenia's Marija Sestak was third.

South Africa's Godfrey Mokoena overhauled early leader Chris Tomlinson of Britain to win the long jump with a fifth-round leap of 8.08 metres.

Asian champion Mohamed Salman Al-Khuwalidi of Saudi Arabia also broke the 8 metre barrier to take the bronze.

Man Utd. closes the gap in english premier league

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