Berhane Adere (ETH) (© Getty Images)
"Almost," said athlete manager Volker Wagner, as he stood beside his forlorn client, Berhane Adere after the women’s 5000m at the 9th Sparkassen meeting, last night (5 February).
For the second time in four days, the Ethiopian runner had barely missed a World record. The event tonight was the women's 5000 metres, as Adere's final time of 14:48.21 came within one second of Gabriela Szabo's 14:47.35, set four years ago on this same Dortmund track, a facility which has dominated the top echelon of the 5K list. The performance was still the second-best ever and bettered Tegla Loroupe's African record which came behind Szabo's record.
Olga Komyagina of Russia--who was also Szabo's workhorse--started the race as the tempo-setter, and brought Adere through the 2K in precisely the planned 5:55. By 2200, Tanzanian runner Restituta Joseph had taken over, and paced for just over six additional laps.
As the stadium announcer repeatedly intoned that Adere was two or three seconds ahead of record pace, it was all too easily forgotten that Szabo had injected her record with a "poison pill" of sorts, in the form of a blazing 29.7 final lap--made necessary to wrest the record from Loroupe in the hot-paced 1999 race. So, those two or three seconds of presumed excess during the middle kilometres vanished over the final 200, which Adere covered in 33.1 last night.
"Quite frankly," continued Wagner, "the World record may have been mentally lost when Berhane fell short in her record attempt in Stuttgart in the 3000 metres on Sunday. If she had been successful there, I think she would have been mentally fresh tonight, and a World record would have been almost certain."
Wagner also noted that Adere had just come from Ethiopia one day before her Stuttgart race and had not felt the change in climate and altitude. Now, after three days, these differences were beginning to set in.
And she departed from the planned script by staying with a pacemaker well past the three-kilometre mark, until almost 3500 metres. "The second pacemaker--who only agreed to help out yesterday--was also a regular runner [Joseph, who finished second in an excellent 15:04.73, the seventh-fastest performance ever], so it was clear that the longer Berhane stayed with her, the more it would work against her," analyzed Wagner.
Adere will go home to Ethiopia after Friday's meet in Chemnitz (1000 metres, a sprint race, comparatively speaking), and then return to Europe to run a 1500-metre race in either Stockholm or Birmingham.
The other possible World record on the programme was also a near miss, as pole vaulter Svetlana Feofanova had one solid attempt at 4.77--one centimetre more than her fresh World record from last Sunday in Glasgow--but it was unsuccessful.
The Russian redhead had some obvious technical problems early on, but she recovered from a most bizarre-looking clearance of 4.61--also jumped successfully by German vaulter Annika Becker--to win the competition outright at 4.67.
Stuttgart winner, Poland's Monika Pyrek, finished third at 4.41.
The form chart on the women's High Jump had predicted Russia's Anna Chicherova with an almost certain win, as the rest of the top jumpers were in Athens for a meeting the previous evening. But obviously, 20-year-old German jumper Melanie Skotnik had not consulted the bookmakers.
Possessing a 1.88 best at the end of last season, which came in winning last year's German under-22 championships, the Bavarian jumper had modestly improved to 1.91 earlier this winter. Now, she can claim a personal best of 1.97, as well as a win over Chicherova, whose top jump for the evening was 1.94.
Although none of Skotnik's attempts at 2.00 were notable--after two personal bests in the competition, this could be expected--she was undaunted at the thought of looking at such a high crossbar, especially at this benchmark height for women's high jumping.
"What worried me most was not the height but the possibility of landing on the bar, because I've suffered a number of back injuries in recent years," she said in conversation at the post-meet dinner. "This is actually my first indoor season in the past three years, all because of injuries. Now, I'm healthy, and I hope to go even higher."
Colin Jackson was handed his first defeat in three outings this season as Maurice Wignall collected a third consecutive Jamaican national record, with a 7.52 victory in the men's 60 Hurdles. Jackson followed closely in 7.56, just barely ahead of Austria's Elmar Lichtenegger (7.57 season best).
The women's 60 metres saw the top three sprinters, post season bests. Karin Mayr of Austria won the close battle with German sprinter Esther Möller, 7.19 to 7.21, as a member of the Dortmund club, Sina Schielke, was third in 7.23. For the two German sprinters, the times represented career bests.
Grit Breuer dropped her first race of the 2003 season. Christine Amertil of the Bahamas passed the German on the final back stretch and held off Breuer's last-ditch effort to win, 52.09 to 52.39.
A similar fate befell Nils Schumann in the 800 metres. Having criticized the slow pacemaking in Erfurt last Friday, the Olympic champion found himself staring at a torrid 51.33 opening 400 from the same tempo-setter, Robert Chirchir.
At this point, Glody Dube was running more relaxed about five metres behind and had the energy reserve needed to overtake a tiring Schumann with 150 left. The German didn't give up easily, pushing hard toward the wire, as Dube slowed noticeably while looking around for his challenger en-route to a 1:46.80 victory. Schumann's second-place time was 1:46.91.
The women's 800 metres was won in come-from-behind fashion by Mina Ait Hamou of Morocco in 2:01.54, over Namibian Agnes Samaria (2:02.00).
At this stage of Dieter Baumann's career, international wins aren't as frequent as they were during the height of his career. Even so, a defeat at the hands of a fellow German has always been, and still is, a rare thing for the 1992 Barcelona 5000 metres champion, who will turn 38 on Sunday.
Tonight, the start of the final backstretch with 150 metres remaining--that same critical part of the track where so many races were decided--was also the magic spot for Jan Fitschen. The 25-year-old German breezed past Baumann at this point and held off the former Olympic champion's comeback attempt for a 7:51.83 win in the 3000 metres. Baumann's 7:51.99 for a close second produced a dramatic and thrilling ending to the evening of athletics in the Helmut-Körning-Halle.
Ed Gordon for the IAAF
RESULTS (all GER except as noted)
MEN:
200 METRES: 1. Ernst 21.22; 2. Moke (CGO) 21.44; 3. Ostwald 21.58.
400 METRES: Race 1: Ullm 49.71; 2. Becher 50.45; 3. Krick 50.83; 4. Kasper 52.02. Race 2: 1. Clarke (JAM) 47.38; 2. Scheer 47.89; 3. Breitenstein 48.70; 4. Klavna (CZE) 48.84.
800 METRES: 1. Dube (BOT) 1:46.80; 2. Schumann 1:46.91; 3. Herms 1:47.89; 4. Battani (MAR) 1:50.35; 5. Co 1:51.36; 6. Hönig 1:56.80. Pace: R Chirchir (KEN).
3000 METRES: 1. Fitschen 7:51.83; 2. Baumann 7:51.99; 3. Reu Kosgei (KEN) 7:54.92; 4. Ghirmai 7:56.41; 5. May 7:59.33; 6. Maataoui (MAR) 8:01.62; 7. Gabius 8:03.81; 8. LeDauphin (FRA) 8:06.45; 9. S Rutich (KEN) 8:07.79; 10. Schütz 8:10.00; 11. Skoog (SWE) 8:10.27; 12. Varnhagen 8:28.31. Did not finish: Buc (SLO), Assmus, S Kipruto (KEN). Pacemakers: Sha Langat (KEN), Beumer (NED), Hedrit.
60 HURDLES: 1. Wignall (JAM) 7.52 NR; 2. Jackson (GBR) 7.56; 3. Lichtenegger (AUT) 7.57; 4. M DeSouza (BRA) 7.73; 5. Fenner 7.78; 6. van der Westen (NED) 7.84. Did not finish: Sedoc (NED), Crews
Heat 1: 1. Jackson 7.63; 2. Lichtenegger 7.64; 3. Crews 7.83; 4. van der Westen 7.84; 5. Blaschek 7.85; 6. Schindzielorz 7.96; 7. Edorh 8.08; 8. Seibold 8.11. Heat 2: 1. Wignall 7.63; 2. M DeSouza 7.73; 3. Sedoc 7.76; 4. Fenner 7.78; 5. Ross (USA) 7.88; 6. Richardson (USA) 7.93 (stumbled at start); 7. Spier (NED) 8.00; 8. Siebert 8.15.
POLE VAULT: 1. Lobinger 5.72; 2. Stolle 5.62; 3. Otto 5.62; 4. Gerasimov (RUS) and Mikhaylichenko (RUS) 5.52; 6. Börgeling 5.52; 7. Janacek (CZE), Spiegelburg, Gorshkov (RUS) and Mazuryk (UKR) 5.32.
WOMEN:
60 METRES: 1. Mayr (AUT) 7.19; 2. E Möller 7.21; 3. Schielke 7.23; 4. Wagner 7.26; 5. Paschke 7.31; 6. G Rockmeier 7.31; 7. Güner (TUR) 7.39; 8. Dowdie (JAM) 7.44.
Heat 1: 1. Mayr 7.32; 2. Wagner 7.33; 3. Schielke 7.38; 4. G Rockmeier 7.43; 5. DeCaluwe (BEL) 7.51; 6. Kuckelkorn 7.54; 7. S Möller 7.64; 8. Rother 7.68. Heat 2: 1. E Möller 7.29; 2. Paschke 7.38; 3. Güner 7.41; 4. Dowdie 7.48; 5. Habel 7.50; 6. Callaerts (BEL) 7.55; 7. Wölfling (AUT) 7.60; 8. Wakan 7.61.
200 METRES: Race 1: 1. Güner (TUR) 23.23; 2. Benesova (CZE) 23.86; 3. S Möller 24.05. Race 2: 1. Manninen (FIN) 23.42; 2. B Rockmeier 23.51; 3. Marahrens 24.56; 4. Nabuoku (JPN) 24.56.
400 METRES: Race 1: 1. Prokopek (POL) 53.95; 2. Hoffmann 54.26; 3. Rücker 55.13. Race 2: 1. Amertil (BAH) 52.09; 2. Breuer 52.39; 3. Marx 52.75; 4. Schott 57.69.
800 METRES: 1. Hamou (MAR) 2:01.54; 2. Samaria (NAM) 2:02.00; 3. Knippel 2:04.45; 4. Bauer 2:08.96; 5. C Schulz 2:09.14. Pace: Urbansky.
5000 METRES: 1. Adere (ETH) 14:48.21 (African record; world leader); 2. Joseph (TAN) 15:04.73; 3. L Cheruiyot (KEN) 15:50.07; 4. Papp (HUN) 16:18.18. Pacemaker: Komyagina (RUS).
HIGH JUMP: 1. Skotnik 1.97; 2. Chicherova (RUS) 1.94; 3. Slesarenko (RUS) 1.91; 4. Imai (JPN) 1.91; 5. Holinski 1.91; 6. Strakova (CZE) 1.84; 7. Herzenberg 1.84.
POLE VAULT: 1. Feofanova (RUS) 4.67 [4.41 - 4.51 - 4.61 - 4.67/2 - 4.77/xxx]; 2. Becker 4.61 [4.21 - 4.41/2 - 4.51 - 4.61/3 - 4.67/xxx]; 3. Pyrek (POL) 4.41; 4. Hingst 4.21; 5. Adams, F Kühnert, and Sonnabend 4.01.
