Distance
races and throws liven up Seville Meeting
IAAF
8 June 2002 – Sevilla, Spain – Opening
well with a good level hammer throw competition, the Seville meeting provided some good
entertainment interspersed with an occasional dash of excitement to pull the crowd to
their feet and what started out as an almost amusing 5000 metres race.
As might have been expected, the distance events produced some of the most exciting competition, even though performances were not as good as could have been expected in the excellent conditions here in Seville. More unusually, there were some excellent performances in the throwing events.
In the men's 5000 metres, first pacemaker Zerzenay Tadesse sprinted away at the gun and for the first 400 metres looked as though he was going for a 500 metre sprint. His fast pace looked even faster as the pack stayed well back and only started to close in on the Ethiopian as they neared his 1000 metre fall out point, reached in 2:33.41, just ahead of the agreed pace of 2:35.
From then on the race settled down, with a procession led by Julius Kiptoo of Kenya, who had taken over the pacing from Tadesse. He led the leaders through 2000 metres in 2:17.56 before dropping out and handing over the race to Benjamin Maiyo and Joseph Kosgei. Maiyo and Kosgei shared the lead for the next 200 metres, with Maiyo passing 3000 metres in 7:58.50 and Kosgei, leading at that point, with the two swapping the lead between them, going through 4000 metres in 10:37.01, closely followed by Eritrea’s Yonas Kifle.
At the finish Maiyo had the advantage after pulling away from Kosgei as they came into the home straight and he finished in 13:14.05, just over a second ahead of Kosgei – 13:15.07 and Kifle – 13:17.72.
The hammer heavyweights opened easily with none of the competitors throwing over 78 metres, but the pressure gradually built up as Hungary’s Adrian Annus progressively built up through 78 metres to 80.53, closing in his fourth and last legal throw with an excellent 81.09. Igor Astapkovich of Belarus took second place with his final throw of 80.61, whilst the final release of Aleksandr Krikun from Ukraine gave him third place with his implement landing 79.85 metres from the circle.
Superman Savante Stringfellow looked as though he was having one of those days best forgotten as he opened his long jump competition with two fouls followed by a legal…5.84 metres. Stringfellow’s partner in crime, Kevin Dilworth, also of the USA, fared little better with his first three attempts, following two fouls with a legal 6.13 metres, leaving the competition in the hands of local favourite Yago Lamela, who won a silver medal in this same stadium at the 1999 World Championships. In his first real competition of the season (he had jumped 8.17 in an exhibition meeting in Cordoba mid-April), the Spaniard opened with 7.65 and then cleard 7.82 metres on his second attempt. But this was to be his best effort of the evening, while Stringfellow found his marks and proceeded to jump a clean, though unspectacular series of 7.96, 7.80 and a final winning 8.01 metres. After another foul with his fourth jump, Dilworth managed to pull a clean fourth attempt of 7.91 metres (-1.4 m/s) out of the bag to beat Lamela in to third place.
In the women’s long jump, it looked as though Spain’s Niurka Montalvo would finish the competition as she started it with no legal jump, but she got it right on her final attempt after five fouls and her modest 6.38 metres effort was sufficient to give her victory with a 4 centimetre advantage over second-placed TatyanaTer-Mesrobian of Russia.
A surprise winner in the men’s 3000 metre steeplechase was local favourite Antonio Jimenez. Admittedly there were only two Kenyans in the race and one of these was pacemaker Josephat Kapkory, but Jimenez still managed to beat Julius Nyamu to the line in a sprint finish and a respectable time of 8:18.09 to Nyamu’s 8:18.40.
In the women's 100 metre hurdles, Jamaica's Bridgette Foster continued her season's domination of the event with a convincing win over Spain's Glory Alozie. The Jamaican owns the world best performance this season with a time of 12.64, in Belem, Brazil on 5 May and looked on top form this evening as she came off the final hurdle just ahead of Alozie and continued on to the finish line to beat the Spaniard 12.76 to 12.93.
In one of the highlight events of the evening, the women’s 3000 metres, Spain’s Marta Dominguez livened up a rather lacklustre race as she finished strongly to beat Isabellah Ochichi to the finish line in 8:57.44 to Ochichi’s 8:57.80. With two other Spaniards taking third and fourth (Jacqueline Martin, third in 9:00.93 and Maria Luisa Larga fourth in 9:01.80), the crowd had their money’s worth.
Another Spanish victory came in the men’s shot put, with European Indoor champion Manuel Martinez beating Ukrainian Yuriy Belonog and Andy Bloom of the USA. Martinez threw a remarkably consistent series, with a winning throw of 20.91 metres just bettering his previous efforts of 20.81, X, 20.78 and 20.79. Belonog was also consistent with efforts ranging between 20.12 and 20.40 metres.
Great Britain’s Kelly Holmes was a decisive winner of the women’s 800 metres as was Bernard Lagat of the men’s 1500. The Bronze medallist from the Sydney Olympic Games 800 metres won the sprint for the finish with Mayte Martinez of Spain (second in 2:00.59) and Judit Varga from Hungary third (2:01.00) hot in pursuit but unable to match the finishing kick of the 32 year old Briton, who crossed the line in 2:00.46.
Paced through the 800 metre point in 1:55.86, Bernard Lagat took over the lead as pacemaker Txomin Martin dropped out of the race at 1000 metres and led his compatriots Laban Rotich and Benjamin Kipkurui for the remainder of the race. Timed at 2:54.12 for 1200 metres, Lagat turned up the pace for the last 400 metres, covered in 42.40 seconds, and crossed the line in the relatively slow time (for him) of 3:36.52.
Despite his relatively slow start to the season – he had run the mile in Eugene on 26 May, with a third place time of 3:52.63 (won by El Guerrouj in 3:50.89) – Lagat has big ambitions and and sees himself, as does his compatriot Noah Ngeny, as one of the men who is going to beat El Guerrouj on the track this year.
“I really think that one of them will do it this year, and why not Bernard,” says manager James Templeton. “Hicham asked for a fast pace in Eugene, but he looked as though he was running out of steam towards the end of the race. Bernard got spiked forty metres out and dropped right back, otherwise he really looked as though he could have beaten El Guerrouj.”
In the men’s 800 metres, Antonio Reina of Spain defended Spain’s honour by beating two Kenyans to the line. After a fast opening 400 metres (52.55), the pace fell off during the second lap and Reina seized the opportunity to kick in the finishing straight and outsprinted Cornelius Chirchir and Japhet Kimutai of Kenya to win in 1:47.80. In a near photo for second place, Chirchir just beat Kimutai as the pair dipped across the line, with 1:47.97 to Kimutai’s 1:47.99.
20.12 and 20.40 metres. Of his three legal throws, Andy Blooms second round throw of 20.18 was the best.
The final event of the evening, The men’s discus’ was won by Hungary’s Robert Fazekas, who threw 68.67 with his last attempt to defeat Dmitri Shevtchenko of Russia (66.26) and his own countryman Roland Varga, 64.98.
In other events, Nora Bicet of Cuba won the women’s javelin with 61.88 metres; Nick Hysong won the men’s pole vault with 5.50 metres and Tany Koleva from Bulgaria won the women’s event with 4.15 metres.
