Defar kneels in Brussels next to the clock displaying her World best for Two Miles (© Getty Images)
Ethiopia may have been seven years behind the rest of world in celebrating the third millennium this week but, give Meseret Defar a track and a clock, and the 23-year-old distance runner from Addis Ababa looks far ahead of her time.
Defar arrived here from Addis only yesterday (13) after joining in her country’s millennium celebrations on Tuesday evening. But she shook off the effects of an eight-hour overnight flight into Brussels to scorch to a World Best time for Two Miles at the Memorial Van Damme – IAAF Golden League – meeting.
And, having beaten the old mark by almost 12 seconds, Defar spoke immediately of her record plans for the future. She wants to improve her 5000m record next year and, some time in the future, take the 10,000m World record as well.
Defar’s runaway victory tonight took her through the 9-minute barrier. Having beaten the World best for the distance once already this year - recording 9:10.47 in Carson in May - she chopped another 11.89sec from it to establish new figures of 8:58.58. Having won a Hyundai car for her efforts, she will now learn to drive. “I don’t have a licence,” Defar said. Can she drive? “I will try now,” she said, with a grin.
In a commanding year, which makes her a leading candidate to become the female World Athlete of 2007, Defar won the 5000 metres gold medal at the World Championships, in Osaka, and has set two World records – at 3000m indoors and 5000m outdoors – as well as her two World Bests at Two Miles and gold in the 5000m at the All Africa Games, in Algiers.
While some will argue the case for Allyson Felix, for her three gold medals in Osaka (200m and two Relays), Mark Wetmore, Defar’s manager, said: “I am certainly not taking away anything from Allyson but Meseret broke a total of four World records this year and has not lost a (track) race.”
Strictly speaking, Defar has broken two World Records as the Two Miles distance is not recognised by the IAAF as an official World record. Her season is not over yet as she flies from here to London for a five kilometres road race on Sunday before closing her season over 3000m at the IAAF / VTB Bank World Athletics Final, in Stuttgart, Germany the following weekend.
Olga Komyagina, the Russian who paced Defar through the early laps of her 5000m World record in Oslo in June (14:16.63), did the job again here. But, for most of the second mile, once the final resistance of Kenya’s Priscah Ngetich Jepleting had been broken, Defar was out on her own. Yet she made such light work of her race against the clock that she went through 3000m in 8:24.51, a national record, meeting record, and world leading time for the year.
Had Defar expected to beat the World best by such a big margin? “Yes, my plan was for 8:55,” she said. Adding that she felt comfortable the whole way, the classed the run as her second greatest of the year – ahead of the first outdoor world title of her career, in Osaka, but behind her 5000m record in Oslo.
Asked whether she looked at doubling over 5000 and 10,000m at the Olympic Games in Beijing next year, Defar said she would concentrate only on defending her 5000 title. “In the Olympics, like Osaka, the weather makes it difficult for two races,” she said. “For long distance the humidity makes it difficult.”
After her triumph in Osaka, Defar held up a board in the Nagai Stadium broadcasting Ethiopia’s millennium celebrations. “To win the World Championships on the eve of the millennium means this is a big celebration for me,” she said at the time.
In the Ethiopian calendar the new year is timed to coincide with the Nile floods in Egypt and the Ethiopian church does not accept a fifth century recalculation of the date of Christ’s birth. So, while the rest of the Christian world believes that 2007 years have elapsed since the nativity, Ethiopia reached 2000 at midnight on Tuesday.
Defar went into the streets of Addis for two hours, from 8 until 10pm, to watch the people party. “After that I watched the celebrations on TV,” she said.
But, while cars drove through Addis with the country’s red, green and gold flag flying, and music boomed from the hundreds of parties in the city, or people went to the free concert in Jan Meda park, Defar had half a mind on Brussels. “I was in bed before midnight!” she giggled.
David Powell for the IAAF
