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World Champs predictions and pontifications – 5000m/10000m
With basically two days to go I thought I’d get cracking on producing a whole new round of baseless predictions for the upcoming Athletics World Championships held in Helsinki, Sweden or some such Scandinavian country. It seems only two short years ago that we had the last World Championships in beautiful picturesque Paris…pity about all the French that live there. However, once again the time has come for the world’s best athletes to strut their stuff in the Finnish capital for the 10th edition of the Championships. It seems fitting that Helsinki has once again been allowed to host the World Championships as they were the home for the first edition back in 1983 which saw the likes of Carl “I love my Gold suit’ Lewis win the 100m. Steve Cram edged out Steve Scott of the US including a host of other big names to clench the 1500m final. Alberto Cova was the winner of the Men’s 10,000m in a time where the first five finishers all recorded 28:01 and the hundreds of a second split them all. The greats like Carlos Lopes, Steve Jones and Alberto Salazar couldn’t manage a podium finish that day.
Importantly, for Australia Robert de Costello cruised home to a twenty-four second victory in the marathon in a time 2:10:03. In the women’s events marathon legend Grete Waitz destroyed her opposition by 3 minutes to win the female version in 2:28:09. Waitz would eventually go on and take another 3 minutes off that time in recording her personal best. However, would be four years later before the females could enjoy the spoils of the 10,000m event and twelve before the 5000m was including in their program.
Perhaps the time for reflection is over as a new breed of athletes take centre stage to test themselves against the best of the best. It country against country, training partner against training partner, EPO user and against EPO user, Alan Webb against hair loss, Maria Mutola against gender bending and so on and so forth. So strap yourselves into that favourite chair of yours because here we go again with the 10th Athletics World Championships.
As the starting point of my inane predictions for the World Champs I thought I would focus firstly on the much anticipated 5000m/10,000m events. Ah…..the majesty of the distance events, the speed and strength combined with the effortless endurance the typifies the greatest distance runners who choose to circle a 400 metre track 12 and a half times or 25 times for the longer version. Morons!
The much-awaited rematch between the great Kenny B, 18-23 year old Eliud Kipchoge and Hicham “I finally didn’t choke” El Guerrouj will, unfortunately not happen. Hicham has withdrawn for the Champs due to the fact that he still carries around those bloody Olympic gold medals everywhere he goes and is really in no mental state to attempt to win another one. Kenny B, however, is just warming to the task of employing a full-time carpenter to upgrade his cabinet at home in search of more gold. The K-man faces likely challenges from Kenyans, Kipchoge and Issac “Newton” Songok. The Professor appears the likely major enemy after disposing of Kipchoge in recent outings, even though Craig “Buster” Mottram beat Songok earlier this year as well. The K-man will be watching Buster also as Mottram appears to be hell bent on taking the attack up to the Africans at all stages in his 5000m events. Once again Mottram will be the odd man out running in a sea of black just like in the Olympics, yet his chancing of medalling are following a similar line to that of Shane Warne’s phone bill, both are rising.
The Great One told me:
- Kenny B
- Buster
- Issac “Newton” Songok
The 10,000m final scheduled for day three of the Champs looks to be a race between world-renowned flutist Kenny B and the clock. My money is on the clock but only just. Without Haile ‘The Great One” Geb retiring from track racing at the conclusion of the 10,000m final in Athens last year, only a kneecapping by teammates will prevent Kenny from securing his first of perhaps two Gold medals at this meet. Look for Sileshi Sihine to feature in the medals even though he doesn’t feature prominently in the top lists of 2005. The bronze should be fought out between the Ethiopians, Kenyans, Qatarians, Ethiopians born Qatarians, Kenyan born Qatarians, and Qatarian born Qatarians that spent a summer in Ethiopia or Kenyan and decided that Qatar was indeed better.
According to the flip of a coin:
- Kenny B
- Sihine
- Gebremariam
In the women’s event of 5000m sees reigning World Champion Tirunesh Dibaba in fine form coming into this year’s race. She’ll face fellow Ethiopian, 52 year old Berhane Adere who has given less than a second away to Dibaba in season best performances. Adere is actually 12 years the senior of Dibaba and is testimony to correct training, proper recovery and the right pharmacist. If Dibaba could secure the Gold she would put herself along side Gabriela “I hate Long Jumpers” Szabo as the only other women to win two 5000m gold medals in the short history of this World Championship race. British hopefully Joanne Pavey will act as the female version of Buster but should be out-muscled, out-gunned and out-paced by her African counterparts.
The Internet suggests:
- Dibaba
- Adere
- Meseret Defar
The women’s 10,000m final is set to be a show stopper as virtually all the big names have come out to play. Dibaba’s sister Ejegayehu will most likely contest the longer version of the distance events on the track with the possibility that Tirunesh will line up also. The Ali Baba sisters are freakish to say the least as they hold – save Adere’s 10,000m time – a thirty-three seconds gap over their nearest rival this year. But track times aside, World Record holder in the marathon, Paula “I cry very much like a girl” Radcliffe has chosen to double at this Worlds, running the 10,000m as well as her favoured event the Marathon-blubber. Radcliffe is the one women set to break the two sisters from a one-two podium finish, yet Paula’s Championship racing has once again been thrown into question. Though it seems doubtful that an Athens repeat is on the cards. Look for Aussie champion Benita Johnson to be in the mix, although her recent poor showings could prove to unhinge her from upsetting the world’s best.
Liz McColgan did mention, even though she denies it:
- Radcliffe
- Dibaba, T
- Dibaba , E
Note: Late mail suggests that some predictions won’t come true or there could be scratchings from certain events and according to my sources in Helsinki that Kenny B may not double as predicted.
It should be noted that for any retorts to these predictions please proceed to the Major Champs forum on 28 racing and stick it to Snorks.
http://www.28racingteam.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=4
