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Kenya: Athletics - Kenyan Gold Rush on Last Day
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The Nation (Nairobi)
5 May 2008
Posted to the web 5 May 2008
Elshadai Negash
Addis Ababa
It was a successful day for Kenya who won three gold medals to lead a rush for medals on the final day of the 16th African Athletics Championships in Addis Ababa Sunday.
Kenya won a total of 16 medals made up of five golds, five silver and six bronze medals to finish fourth behind South Africa, Nigeria and Ethiopia.
Grace Wanjiru set the day rolling with her controlled performance to win the women's 20km walk in the morning at the Addis Ababa Stadium. Mary Njoki won the bronze in the event, with Ethiopia's Asnakech Ararsa taking the silver medal. Pamela Chelimo then set the stadium alight when she pulverised the women's 800 metres field that included Mozambican legend Maria Mutola to easily win the gold medal.
Mutola won the silver medal while Agnes Samaria of Namibia won the bronze. The 19-year old Chelimo, who had won the Kenyan national trials two weeks ago but was a very much unheralded name in African middle distance running, beat the Mozambican in a thrilling contest. The final heralded the dawn of an era for arguably the world's greatest ever middle distance runners, but the start of a bright new one for Kenya's Chelimo who will surely figure as a prominent runner in the months leading up to the Beijing Olympics. Harun Keitany capped the day with a fine performance to win the men's 1,500 metres gold in 3:43.45 followed closely by Gideon Gathimba in 3:43.56 in second place and South Africa's Juan van Deventer in 3:43.63 in third place.
Also on the podium Sunday was Isaac Songok, who pushed Ethiopian great Kenenisa Bekele to the finish line. Songok won the silver medal in 13:49.91 behind Bekele in 13:49.67. Ali Abdush of Ethiopia finished third in 13:50.64 to take the bronze medal. The 25-year old Bekele, who had skipped the 10000m a few days earlier, recovered in time from the excursions of winning a sixth successive world cross country title a month ago in Edinburgh with a hard-fought victory over Songok. The Kenya women's 4 x 400 metres relay team also put up a fine performance to take the silver medal behind Nigeria.
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The Kenya team was made up of Florence Wasike, Charity Wandia, Joyce Sakari and Pamela Chelimo. Senegal won the bronze. All Africa Games women's steeplechase champion Ruth Bosibori faded out in the last lap to finish third in her race. Bosibori won the bronze medal in 10:00.18 behind second-placed Mekdes Bekele (9:59.52) of Ethiopia and gold medal winner Zemzem Ahmed (9:44.58), also of Ethiopia.
On Friday, double world 10000m champion Tirunesh Dibaba added an African title to her impressive collection to lead Ethiopia to its second clean sweep of all the medals in the women's 10000m final. The 23-year old, who is also a world indoor 5000m record holder and a former African 5000m silver medallist, made her penultimate move at the 150m mark to take victory over her sister in 32:49.08 ahead of sister Ejegayehou with national champion Wude Ayalew coming third to complete the domination.
Under the watchful eyes of yet another capacity crowd at the Addis Ababa stadium, the women's 10000m was also going to be a contest between Kenya and hosts Ethiopia.
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