FARAWAY, SO close. It’s been a long and tiring nine days in Berlin and no wonder several athletes collapsed at the end of it.
In the case of Geleta Burka it wasn’t all about exhaustion and she was almost certainly denied a medal of some colour when she was sent tumbling to the track approaching the final bend of the women’s 1,500 metres.
Accidental or otherwise, the small Ethiopian was clearly brought down by Natalia Rodriguez of Spain, who had broken the basic rule of distance running by bursting through on the inside, and elbowing her opponent out of the way in the process. Not once, but twice. It’s not something you get away it and the Spanish athlete soon realised that. While Burka pulled herself up and began the futile chase, Rodriquez went on for the win in 4:03.74, edging out defending champion Maryam Yusuf Jamal of Bahrain, and the equally fast-finished Lisa Dobriskey of Britain.
Burka did manage to finish in 4:11.21, but then promptly fell to the track again, as Rodriguez tried to offer some consolation. There was a sort of half-hearted celebration from the Spaniard but rules are rules. The track judges didn’t need to mull over the matter for long. With the hour it was announced Rodriguez had been disqualified, which meant Jamal in fact successfully defended her title, by just one hundredth of a second from Dobriskey, with Shannon Rowberry of the US moved up to third in 4:04.18.
Still there was no consolation for Burka. She’d taken the race out from the gun, leading through 400 and 800 metres, and up to the fatal 1,300-metre mark. Her reward was to find herself face down on the track, wondering what could have been had not been so cruelly interfered with.
A little later, South Africa’s Mbulaeni Mulaudzi also found himself stretched out on the track, but the difference this time was he had dived over the finishing line to ensure his gold medal in the men’s 800 metres in 1:45.29. The 28-year-old, and the oldest man in the race, had also taken out the pace from the gun, leading the field of 10 through 400 metres in a fairly casual 53.44. The only problem was the rest were bunched up behind him, and made for a hectic last lap, and a particularly hectic last 200 metres.
Somehow Mulaudzi found the strength to hold off the stunningly fast finishes of defending champion Alfred Yego of Kenya, who took silver, and 1,500 metres winner Yusuf Saad Kamel of Bahrain, who took bronze, though both men were given the same time, 1:45.45.
Mulaudzi probably only hung on thanks to a finishing dip more worthy of a 100-metre sprinter, while again Russia’s former Olympic champion Yuriz Borzakovskiy range a strange tactical race, moving back and fourth between the pack, before ending up fourth in 1:45.57.
The final two field events were won in slightly contrasting fashion. With a huge throw of 89.59 metres on just his second attempt, Andreas Thorkildsen won the men’s javelin and with that became the first athlete in history to be crowned Olympic, World and European javelin champion at the same time.
Guillermo Martinez of Cuba secured the silver medal with 86.41 metres on his final attempt, while Yukifumi Murakami of Japan, a surprise qualifier with a best of 83.10, produced the biggest surprise of all the field events with his bronze-medal throw of 82.97 metres. It was Japan’s first javelin medal in either Olympic or World Championships.
Britney Reese then earned the US their 10th gold of the championships, but not before surviving a bit of a scare. Although an opening jump of 6.92 metres looked as if it would win it, defending champion Tatyana Lebedeva of Russia topped that with 6.97 metres in the next round, only for Reese to respond with a world-leading 7.10 metres.
