BEIJING (Reuters) — Defending champion Meseret Defar, 10,000 metres winner Tirunesh Dibaba and African champion Meselech Melkamu are bidding for an Ethiopian sweep of the medals in the Olympic women’s 5000 final tomorrow.
”We’ve done good preparation and we came to win,” Melkamu told Reuters.
The trio were part of Ethiopia’s sweep of the first four places at the 2005 world championships in Helsinki, where Dibaba, her elder sister Ejegayehu and Defar earned medals, and Melkamu fell just short.
World 10,000 champion Dibaba won the Olympic 10,000 tomorrow in 29:54.66, the second-fastest time ever.
”It was really very tough,” said Dibaba, who was pushed hard by Ethiopian-born Turk Elvan Abeylegesse who is also running the 5000.
In Helsinki, Dibaba led Ethiopian sweeps in both distance races when she became the first woman to take double gold in the events at the world championships.
”We have trained hard as a team and we expect to record good results for our country,” she said.
She slashed Defar’s world 5000 record by over five seconds in Oslo in June, running 14:11.15, and is well set to repeat the double, a feat also being attempted by compatriot and fellow 10,000 gold medallist Kenenisa Bekele in the men’s events.
Defar, 5000 world champion, lost her African title to Melkamu in May, but ran 14:12.88 in Stockholm last month.
”The race in Stockholm was one in which I demonstrated my form and it gave me a wonderful vision for Beijing,” Defar said.
She has been pleasantly surprised by the climate of China’s capital, which had been expected to be oppressively hot and humid.
”The weather is fine,” she said before the 5000 heats in which the trio sailed through comfortably.
”It’s not like what we had heard.”