Rashid Ramzi, Olympic 1500m champion (© Getty Images)
There are no Olympic medals given out for being ranked #1 in the world, and two different finals Tuesday evening at Beijing's National Stadium underlined that point.
Ohuruogu not a fluke
400m favorite Sanya Richards was looking to improve on a disappointing 2007 in which she failed to even qualify for the U.S. team at the Osaka World Championships in the event where she was top ranked. Instead she found herself walked down in the homestretch by the winner of that Richards-less Osaka final, Christine Ohuruogu. After the sort of quick start she's practiced through the rounds here, Richards arrived on the homestretch first, but couldn't hang on to the lead. "My right hamstring grabbed on me, and I just couldn't move it anymore," said Richards. "I tried to hold them off, and I just couldn't."
Ohuruogu, on the other hand, came through with the strong closing 100m she's been practicing through the rounds, and just like in Osaka, it carried her to the front in time to claim the gold medal with a 49.62 clocking. "I know I can perform well when I need to," said Ohuruogu, who shouldn't need to make that point with two major titles now in her pocket. "I may not have a good season, but [this] is what I train all year for."
Richards faded to third in 49.93, with Jamaica's Shericka Williams also getting by to win silver in 49.69.
Harper steps in for hurdle win
The women's 100m hurdles was supposed to be a walkover for World Indoor Champion Lolo Jones, the world leader and winner of the U.S. Trials. But things started going wrong for Jones right from the start. Behind from the gun, Jones shifted into her top gear and started to pull away after four or five hurdles. Her sheer sprint speed would be her undoing, however, and she found herself out of her own stride pattern at the ninth hurdle. Clipping the hurdle didn't bring her down, but it almost brought her to a dead stop, and she lost all the ground she'd just made up.
It was the next slowest starter, teammate Dawn Harper, who was there to capitalize on Jones' catastrophe. Harper sailed through the line in a PB 12.54 for gold, a blink ahead of another surprising medalist, Australia's Sally McLellan. McLellan was almost indistinguishable in the photo finish from another surprise medalist, Canadian Priscilla Lopes-Schliep. The slowest start of all came from the third American, Damu Cherry, whose 0.239 reaction time compared to the sharp 0.138 from McLellan left her fourth and out of the medals.
Silnov's perfect series
Russian Andrey Silnov's winning clearance of 2.36m may have been 3cm below the Olympic Record set by Charles Austin in 1996, but as usual in the high jump the competition is not always to be judged by the winning mark. After passing the opening height of 2.15m, Silnov hit every successive height on his very first attempt, clearing 2.20m, 2.25m, 2.29m, 2.32m, 2.34m en route without a single miss. With the medals decided, Silnov had the bar moved to 2.42m, the European record height and well beyond the Olympic record, and only there did he miss any jumps. Silnov's first attempt at that height was almost a clearance as well, the second not so sharp, and the third, again, just a whisper away from perfect. Only in the vertical jumps does the competition end by design in failure, or Silnov might have left the Bird's Nest without a single miss.
Just less than perfect was Britain's Germaine Mason, who took his only miss at 2.29m as a cue to pass up to 2.32m. He hit that height on his first try, and had he done the same at 2.36m he might have pressed Silnov to the end. Instead he equalled his PB at 2.34m, and his one-jump clearance of 2.32m gave him silver ahead of Yaroslav Rybakov, who used all three attempts to get over that height before matching Mason at 2.34m.
4th-throw heroics for Kanter
For three rounds it looked like Piotr Malachowski of Poland was going to swipe the discus title for the red and white just as his teammate Majewski had the shot put gold on Friday. With similar high-trajectory throws, Malachowski pitched the disk three times beyond anyone else's best, including a second-round 67.82m fling, but Estonian Gerd Kanter was not to be denied. A single fourth-round spin of 68.82m, exactly 1m beyond Malachowski's, sealed the win for Kanter. The Baltic sweep was completed by the Lithuanian stalwart Virgilijus Alekna, who also delivered a long fourth-round throw to 67.79m.
Ramzi's sprint still unsolved
The last final of the evening was the men's 1500m, left without World Champion Bernard Lagat. Instead it was 2005 World Champion Rashid Ramzi of Bahrain who had the furious long sprint for the win. Though the pack seemed to want to sap Ramzi's kick with a faster early pace, they couldn't settle who would do the work, and as a result when Ramzi broke free on the backstretch there were few ready to chase him.
Kenya's Asbel Kiprop gave his best attempt, though, and as Ramzi began to feel the effort on the homestretch Kiprop was actually gaining ground. He ran out of track before heading the Moroccan native, however, and Ramzi took gold in 3:32.94. Kiprop was 3:33.11, a sprint's margin behind, but even closer was the gap between New Zealand's Nick Willis (3:34.16) and France's Mehdi Baala (3:34.21) which earned the Commonwealth Games champion an Olympic bronze.
Parker Morse for the IAAF
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