Ethiopian Review

Tirunesh Dibaba, the Olympic champion and world record holder for 5,000metres, has pulled out of her clash with Meseret Defar in Friday night’s Bislett Games in Oslo through injury.

The Ethiopian duo have built a keen rivalry in recent times and it was expected Dibaba’s world record of 14 minutes 11.15 seconds set in last year’s meeting would be threatened in their head-to-head duel.

Bislett organisers and the athlete’s manager Mark Wetmore had no prior knowledge of Dibaba’s withdrawal when it was announced on her website on Thursday, but the announcement proved correct. “She’s suffering from shin splints which came after a training session earlier in the week,” said her husband Sileshi Sihine, who is competing over 5,000m at Oslo.

He added: “It would have been impossible for her to run here and now she is resting and hoping to get fit and ready for the World Championships next month.”

Despite Dibaba’s withdrawal Defar is still hopeful of laying claim to the world record with plans having been redrafted to bring in the required pacemakers.

Defar is also aiming to regain her Oslo title, which she last held two years ago when she set a then world-record mark of 14min 16.63secs at this meet.

In the men’s 5,000m Kenenisa Bekele will be looking to follow on from his win in the opening Golden League meeting in Berlin.

Bekele will, therefore, be gunning to keep his hopes alive of sweeping all six meetings and staying in contention for the US$1 million jackpot.

The Olympic and world gold medallist outfoxed his predominantly Kenyan rivals with his finishing pace three weeks ago and this time has another tactic up his sleeve.

Sihine is expected to take the sting out of the opposition by taking the pace through a superfast first 3,000m of 7min 45secs, which could see Bekele’s five-year-old world record of 12min 37.35secs threatened.

- Virgin Media