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News18 Jul 2002


Men 1500 metres heats

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Men 1500 metre heats

First four of each heat and next four fastest finishers qualify for the final.

Rivals Kenya and Tanzania fought it out in the first heat only for Morocco to slip in between the two at the finish .

Samuel Nwera from Tanzania and Samson Kiplangat had controlled the race from the start, with first Nwera in the lead (400m in 59.99) and then Kiplangat (800m 2:03.03; 1200m  3:02.69). the pair were leading as the front pack approache the home straight as the semblance of a challenge came from New Zealand’s Nick Willis and Morocco’s Yassine Bensghir.

Nwera and Kiplangat managed to pull away from the New Zealander, with Nwera holding his lead, but Bensghir succeeded in passing the Kenyan to take second place in the heat, with Nwera crossing the line in 3:43.56, Bensghir in 3:44.51, Kiplangat in 3:45.16 and Willis in 3:45.98 for automatic qualification.

In the second of the two heats, it was once again a Kenyan who made all the running, but this time his day was spoiled at the line.

Isaac Songok had led the race from the start, timing through the splits in 54.21 (400m); 1:55.06 (800). Trailing the Kenyan, Qatar’s Abdulrahman Suleiman pushed up the pace in the last 50 metres and sprinted past Songok to steal the honours. This must have been some measure of revenge for the Qatari from last year’s World Youth Championships in Debrecen, Hungary, where Suleiman won the bronze medal as Songok took 1500 metre gold..

It remains to be seen whether they can keep their positions in Sunday’s final.

Further back, in third position, Juan Luis Barrios from Mexico set a national junior record with his time of 3:42.00 and Toni Mohr from Germany ran a personal best of 3:44.59 to become the fourth automatic qualifier in this heat.

Once again each heat produced two further qualifiers as next fastest finishers.

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