Kipchoge 5,000m win denies El Guerrouj second gold
Had El Guerrouj been successful he would have been the first athlete since the legendary Pavel Nurmi at the 1924 Olympics to achieve the 1,500m-5,000m double.
“I am very happy with what I have got and the performance and I feel like a prince,” said El Guerrouj.
The 18-year-old Kenyan ran a championship record of 12min 52.79sec to beat home 1,500m champion El Guerrouj while Ethiopia’s 10,000m titleholder Kenenisa Bekele took the bronze.
Kipchoge was delighted that, along with women’s marathon winner Catherine Ndereba, he had rescued what had been a dreadful championships for the Kenyans.
“These championships have been so bad for Kenya but now we have two golds. I felt quite strong with three laps to go and by the end I decided I would bite and kick to the finish as I fancied my chances with El Guerrouj.
“It was only winning the world junior cross country championships earlier this year that made me conscious I could push my body to such extremes,” he said.
Bekele had set the early pace while one of his team-mates boxed in the Moroccan, but gradually the first three home exchanged the pacesetting duties until El Guerrouj made his move entering the final lap.
It looked as if the 29-year-old had assured himself of another extraordinary landmark as he rounded the bend clear, but Kipchoge and Bekele came back at him strongly.
While Bekele went out wide, Kipchoge was virtually in the same lane as his quarry and fighting it out like two weary prizefighters down the final 50m it was the teenager who got the nod ahead of the great Moroccan.
Bekele, who beat his legendary compatriot Haile Gebrselassie in the 10,000m last Sunday, was not disappointed by his bronze and said it had not put him off running the double again, probably the Olympics next year with once again the mouthwatering prospect of him facing both Gebrselassie and El Guerrouj.
“I knew our only chance of beating El Guerrouj was if we wore him out by setting a fast pace,” said Bekele. “I now regret not having run faster because he was able to stay with it.”
Controversial newly-crowned 400 metres champion Jerome Young anchored the United States to the men’s 4x400 metres relay world title earlier in the evening. The quartet timed 2min 58.88sec to beat Francewhile Jamaica took the bronze.Young had to cope with the pressure of claims he had tested positive for steroids in 1999 prior to winning an internal appeal and going on to win a 4x400m relay gold in the 2000 Olympics.
However, the 27-year-old Jamaican-born runner showed little signs of stress as, trailing Jamaica’s Commonwealth Games champion Michael Blackwood on the final leg, he waited to pounce rounding the final bend. Young turned on the gas but then had to repel a late charge by the individual bronze medallist Mark Raquil before he could celebrate his second title of the week.
The US had earlier set the women’s 4x400 metres relay world title when their quartet timed 3min 22.63sec to beat Russia while Jamaica took the bronze.
In the earlier finals, Tatyana Tomashova of Russia won the women’s 1,500 metres title. The 28-year-old timed 3min 58.52sec to beat Turkey’s Sureya Ayhan while Hayley Tullett of Great Britain took the bronze.
Kenya’s Catherine Ndereba claimed divine intervention helped her to win the women’s marathon world title in a championship record time of 2hr 23min 55sec on Sunday.
“It was not my power but the power of God that won this gold medal,” said the 31-year-old runner, who fell down in prayer as soon as she crossed the line. “I made a promise that if I won I would thank God immediately. I’m speechless, only God knows what I’m feeling at the moment.”
The Pennsylvania-based former Kenyan prison officer’s emphatic victory quashed speculation that she could only run well in big city marathons.
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