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03 May, 2008
Double world 10000m champion Tirunesh Dibaba today 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 at the 16th CAA African Athletics Championships.
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.
After diligent persistence by Rwanda’s Claudette Mukasakindi for nearly the first half of the race, the contest ended as the battle amongst African nations after ten laps when three Ethiopians and Kenyan Lucy Kabuu dropped the tiring runner.
It was clear at this point that the Ethiopians wanted to shake off Kabuu to fight for the podium positions. But Kabuu proved to be an able contestant when first Ejegayehou (after 15 laps), Ayalew (with eight laps left), and Tirunesh all tried to drop her.
Her resistance was broken with only three and half laps of the race left as Ejegayehou led her sister Tirunesh and Ayalew as the trio reduced the contest into a one-nation battle.
With two laps left, Ejegayehou tried to open a gap and drop off her sister Tirunesh, who was clutching her stomach in agony earlier in the race. But her attempts were futile as the trio were all in contention at the bell.
As the crowd cheering, Ejegayehou was the first to make a serious kick for the finish, but Tirunesh responded with a furious move forward at 9500m. None of the other Ethiopians were able to respond to her trademark finishing sprint as she powered to victory.
Ejegayehou continued her recovery from a disastrous 2007 season with silver on home soil, while Ayalew continued her progress with a well-deserved bronze.
Elshadai Negash for addis2008.org