Genzebe Dibaba, the youngest of a stunning dinasty http://www.juventudrebelde.cu/multimedia/fotografia/generales/genzebe-dibaba/ |
That cold spring morning of 2008, in Edinburgh , Tirunesh Dibaba, in spite of her
youth one of the most decorated women in the history of athletics, had
something to prove after suffering a clear defeat against Lornah Kiplagat in
the precedent edition of the World Cross Country Champs. However, she seemed
more worried about the performance of her younger sister Genzebe, who was to
participate in the opening race of the contest. So anxious was Tirunesh, she
neglected her own warming up in order to watch her sister run. In the end,
the 17-year-old Ethiopian attacked in the decisive Haggis Knowe hill with 400m
to go, to snatch her first international title. Likewise, Tirunesh recovered
her World Cross crown in the next hour but, as she declared to journalists, she
was even more elated for the sensational victory of her sister. It was a long
way, since Cousin Derartu Tulu had opened the path for every Ethiopian woman
with the first of her three Cross Country gold medals in 1995, and previously
with her triumph at the 10.000m in Barcelona Olympic Games. The youngest member
of that prosperous lineage had to feel particularly inspired and well protected
in her blossoming time, surrounded by such accomplished family of runners. Derartu,
Eyegayehu, Tirunesh, all felt proud her heritage, the Ethiopian racing
tradition, had been preserved and transmitted so brilliantly to the newest
generation.
Four years have passed since that revelation and now
Genzebe Dibaba, after her victory at the World indoor championships in Istanbul last winter and her recent groundbreaking
demonstration at the Diamond League meeting in Shanghai ,
appears as the most solid prospect for Olympic gold in team Ethiopia . The
awesome generation that shocked the athletic world in 2003 seems now virtually
exhausted, after a whole decade of holding national hopes in global challenges.
Years of injuries have taken its toll in Kenenisa Bekele, Sileshi Sihine and
Tirunesh Dibaba, all three of them struggling to regain their past form.
Likewise, the remaining ace of that marvellous poker, Meseret Defar, seems to
have lost the mental battle against current female number one, Vivian
Cheruiyot. Kenya
is largely dominating long distance right now and their archrivals look unable
to find a valid relay. http://moti-athletics-5000-w.blogspot.com.es/2012/01/kenya-outckicks-ethiopia.html Yet if Vivian Cheruiyot and Kenyan
marathoners seem unstoppable in their way to the Olympic title, in middle
distance Ethiopia
still keep some good chances of victory.
Nevertheless,
contrary to their East African neighbours, the country which owns eight Olympic
titles in the 10.000m has little tradition in the 800m and the 1500. In the first Olympic
Games they took part in, back in the 1960s, both Kenya
and Ethiopia
used to line-up, besides distance runners, also sprinters, quarter milers and
hurdlers. Some of those athletes had remarkable success as the members of the
Kenyan 4x400 relay, winners in Munich 1972 and runner-up in Mexico 1968, featuring
Daniel Rudisha, father of the current 800m world record holder. On occasion of
the African Championships they hosted in Nairobi
in 2010, this country tried to recover their international presence in some of
those events. Thanks to this effort, Kenya
is likely to qualify its 4x400m relay for London ,
after a long hiatus, and amazingly will also send Julius Yego, first national
representative ever in the Olympics in the javelin discipline, who recently
returned from a training camp in Finland .
Fantu Magiso at the 2012 World indoor Championships in Istanbul Photo: Ian Walton/ Getty Images Europe http://www.zimbio.com |
If Ethiopia has
found an astounding 800m male athlete in teen Mohamed Aman, awesome the same is
her female counterpart Fantu Magiso. Not
long time ago it was rather unusual to find East African women in the 800m global
competitions. For the 2005 World Championships, Kenyan officials did not find
necessary to enter Janeth Jepkosgei, despite she had largely achieved the standard.
However they wisely changed mind for the next edition of the contest in Osaka , just in time to
allow her become world champion. Then, the following year, amazingly the first
two Kenyan female gold medals ever at the Olympic Games would be achieved
precisely at the 800m and 1500m by Pamela Jelimo and Nancy Jebet Langat
respectively. Now besides already classic specialists Jepkosgei and Jelimo , Kenya
have plenty of effervescent 800m female standouts as Eunice Sum, Cherono Koech
and Winny Chebet. Also Uganda ,
which lately seemed to be just another East African cradle of long distance
runners, is now remembering with Annet Negesa, a brilliant talent on the making,
their greatest legends John Akii-Bua and Davis Kamoga had endurance yet had
also speed and power. On the other hand, Fantu Magiso is the first Ethiopian half-miler
we can remember and furthermore she excelled before in the 200m and 400m. She
owns in those distances respective PBs of 23.90 and 52.09, being the former
more than 2 seconds better than the precedent national record, which plainly
speaks about the previous standards in the country in the discipline. Such
speed must be an asset for Magiso’s bright future in the 800m. Often described
as clumsy on the track, to the point she nearly collided with a photographer in
her race in the Madison
Square Garden
last winter, Fantu is quickly winning experience and she should be a fearsome
contender soon. Last season she struck the 400m at the African junior
Championship, then went on to reach the semi-finals in the 800m in Daegu. This
year she narrowly missed the medals in Istanbul and recently dared to challenge no less than the reigning Olympic champion
Pamela Jelimo at the Diamond League meeting in Doha , to finish an excellent second, in a
massive national record of 1:57.90. Watch out for her in a near future!
Tizita Bogale and Asmerawork Bekele clash in a meeting in Huelva http://www.flickr.com/photos/vanbreack/4835704034/ |
Nonetheless, it may
be tough for Fantu Magiso to shine in London Olympics in an 800m contest so
loaded of scintillating stars, including Olympic champion Pamela Jelimo,
happily returned to where she used to be after some difficult seasons, the last
two world champions Caster Semenya and Mariya Savinova, and Janeth Jepkosgei, who
has been in every major championship podium since 2007. Much more up to
surprises is currently the 1500m event. In the last couple of years the
discipline has lacked a leader, a dominator. A reason is the four best athletes
of the world middle distance powerhouse, Russia , were sanctioned because of
a doing offence, and same fate suffered global medallists Daniela Yordanova and
Bouchra Ghezielle. Russia
has not found for the moment a valid replacement for the likes of Tomashova,
Soboleva and Fomenko, apart from Anna Alminova, who is currently injured. Besides,
even the foremost milers right now are not consistent enough: Maryam Yussuf
Jamal clinched gold at the 2007 and 2009 World championships but also
unexpectedly faded in the Olympic final when she looked the sure winner and was
not either a factor last year in Daegu. On the other hand, Olympic champion
Nancy Jebet Langat dominated in great fashion the 2010 campaign but was out of
shape in both Berlin
and Daegu finals. Finally the United
States seemed to have an excellent candidate
for the gold medal for last year World Champs in Morgan Uceny, winner of three
Diamond League meetings and the most regular miler during the year, but a fall
prevented her from success. Spaniard Natalia Rodríguez looked strong enough to
avenge her polemic disqualification in Berlin
but in the end it was another US
representative, Jennifer Barringer-Simpson, who surprisingly got the better of
the whole field in the homestretch. Simpson, a former steeplechase star,
changed to the middle distances looking for a new challenge, yet injuries and
inconsistency sowed doubts about her future in the event. After her sensational
victory in Daegu, the world champion followed it up with a 10th place
in Rieti and a 13th position at the Ivo Van Damme meeting, again
raising the question mark about whether she will be able to maintain her number
one status for long time. Only three athletes (Jamal, Rodríguez and Kalkidan
Gezahegne) repeated final from the previous edition in Berlin , which is a clear evidence of the
current inconsistency in the event. Besides, the standards have dropped: no
athlete got to run the distance under 4 minutes in 2011.
The female 1500
event is nowadays experiencing a crisis of leadership and results. However, the
discipline is on the rise in East African countries. Pioneers like Derartu Tulu
spread the example and now Kenyan and Ethiopian women are massively practising
sport and also entering virgin territory, embracing new disciplines. Helen
Obiri, who broke Meseret Defar’s streak at the 3000m in World indoors last
winter in Istanbul ,
looks a Kenyan solid alternative to Nancy Langat and Irene Jelagat, who has not
progressed as expected after her victory at the 2006 World Junior
Championships. And this nation has another exciting prospect in Faith Kipyegon,
who last year won gold in both the 1500m World Youth championships in Lille and at the World
junior Cross Country in Punta Umbría. At only 18 years of age, Kipyegon has
already run the distance in a world class 4:03.82.
Kalkidan Gezahegne, the world indoor champion in 2010 http://indoortrackandfield.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/dsc_0096.jpg |
Nevertheless,
Ethiopian women are by far the most impressive currently among East Africans.
When Derartu Tulu, Gete Wami and Fatuma Roba were making the highlights in the
10.000 and the marathon, the lone standout of the country in the 1500m was
Kutre Dulecha. This athlete enjoyed a noteworthy athletic career in the late
1990s and early 2000s, achieving a gold medal at the 2004 World indoor
championships and a bronze outdoors in Seville
1999, besides back-to-back junior and senior global titles in Cross Country. After
her retirement, Maryam Yussuf Jamal and Gelete Burka took over, although the
former chose to represent Bahrein. Burka for one reason or another has in most
of the occasions failed to deliver to the expectations she rose when she
reached the 1500m World summer final in 2005, being a junior, and then struck
the World Cross short title the following year. Though she was bestowed the
2008 World indoor title in Valencia, after Yelena Soboleva’s disqualification,
Gelete Burka missed her greatest occasion of glory that same winter at the
World Cross in Edmonton, because of wrong tactics, and on the track, after too
many missed opportunities her moment has past too. Now is the time for her
younger compatriots.
Kalkidan Gezahegne,
already a finalist at the 2009 World Summer Champs, solved the animosity the
incident between Natalia Rodríguez and Gelete Burka in Berlin
had created, beating both of them at the World indoors in Doha . That one was a highly successful winter
for Gezahegne, who also broke both the world junior at the 1500m and the mile.
However an untimely injury broke her meteoric progression. After many months
out of competition, the promising Ethiopian was back in 2011 but then, another
newcomer from her same country, Abeba Aregawi, an athlete based in Sweden, took the spotlight all over the
winter, with four astounding victories in well-known international meetings. Now
Aregawi was believed to become the brand new Ethiopian star but she also fell
injured and missed the entire summer campaign. In Daegu, Gezahegne was the high-placed
athlete of the country in a good 5th place but only one year ago she
seemed to be predestined for more. Not selected for Korea, Tizita Bogale, gold
medallist two years before at both Youth Olympic Games and World Junior
Championships, had notwithstanding progressed to a remarkable 4:03.98, during
the season. She should be also an athlete to watch out for the future.
In 2012, all
Gezahegne, Aregawi and Bogale, as good as they are, have been overshadowed by
the stellar campaign of Genzebe Dibaba. With two world titles in Cross Country
and one on the track as a junior, Genzebe had not however deliver in her first
senior competitions in the same impressive fashion her elder sisters Eyegayehu
and Tirunesh did in the past. Being just 18, she was a good 8th in 2009 in Berlin at the 5000m, but another 8th
placement two years later in Daegu did not really seemed a progression by
Ethiopian standards, specially when compared to long time archrival Mercy Cherono's fifth place. This winter she concentrated her endeavours in the 1500m,
probably to improve on her speed for the 5000m campaign in the summer. However,
after her stunning results during the indoor season, she is likely to keep the
1500m as her pet event. Unbeaten throughout the winter, she culminated her
solid campaign with a sensational victory at the World Championships in Istanbul , the third Ethiopian
title in a row. Breaking the “follow the leader” family tradition of great
kickers as Derartu and Tirunesh, Genzebe made a groundbreaking display of front
running, progressively increasing the pace to romp home unchallenged. That
victory put her in the map for medal contention in Beijing . Last week she launched her summer
season in Shanghai with a still more spectacular display of good running, for a
sensational victory over her reborn compatriot Abeba Aregawi, both dipping for
the first time under the 4-minute barrier. Thus Genzebe Dibaba broke the long
standing Kutre Dulecha’s national record of 3:58.38, lowering it to a world
class 3:57.77. That demonstration put the youngest of the Dibaba clan as firm
favourite for gold at the upcoming London Olympic Games. If Tirunesh fails to
beat Kenyan Vivian Cheruiyot, maybe Genzebe can still maintain the family at the
top, or maybe we can witness for the first time in many years how two siblings
climb to the top of a track and field podium at the Olympic Games.
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