After thriling title run, Masai no longer the bridesmaid

Berlin, GermanyWhen Kenyan distance runner Moses Masai was asked yesterday morning how his younger sister Linet would fare in the women’s 10,000m he said he thought she’d do well. “But whatever she does,” he added. “I’ll do better.”

After his 19-year-old sibling’s sensational victory over the mighty Ethiopians in last night’s final he’ll have to produce one hell of a stunning performance in the men’s race on Monday to outdo her now. Not that the softly-spoken shy girl of Kenyan distance running is worried about that. Indeed, she believes her gold medal is a good omen for the Masai family.

Like sister, like brother?

“In Beijing both of us were fourth,” she says, referring to last year’s Olympic Games when she and her brother came agonisingly close to medals. “This year I am the champion and I believe he will be the same.”

Of course, Moses will have to overcome the triple champion and World record holder, Kenenisa Bekele, to match his sister’s achievement. And, no doubt, some will claim Linet’s win was devalued by the absence of Tirunesh Dibaba, the reigning champion and double Olympic gold medallist, who pulled out of the event a few days ago with a leg injury.

'It doesn't matter that Dibaba wasn't here'

Not surprisingly, Masai doesn’t see it that way. After all, she destroyed the Ethiopian in New York earlier this summer over 5000m, a performance that gave her the belief she could win again in Berlin’s Olympic Stadium, even though the Ethiopian great was below her best at the time.

“It doesn’t matter that Dibaba wasn’t there tonight,” she says. “This year I have beaten Dibaba already so I don’t think it would have made any difference.”

In fact, Masai’s victory over the remaining Ethiopians – Meselech Melkamu, the world number one and second fastest all-time, Meseret Defar, the reigning 5000m champion, and Wude Ayalew, who took the bronze medal – was no matter of chance or luck.

The Kenyan team devised a plan to end Ethiopia’s decade-long dominance of this event, and Masai made it work to perfection.

Initially, she was the only Kenyan runner named for the event but the federation later granted the World Cross Country champion, Florence Kiplagat, and African 5000m bronze medallist, Grace Momanyi, wildcard places in the team.

“We saw it would be unfair for Linet to compete against the Ethiopians alone at the World Championships, and coaches recommended to Athletics Kenya that they include Grace and Florence,” new national head coach, Peter Mathu, explained at the time. “I believe now we have a strong team to take on our rivals since Linet has runners she can work with.”

With her heartbreaking Beijing experience still fresh in her mind, Masai was right behind the plan. “You have to start pushing early and run strong since they can finish you with their kick and that requires serious training,” she said after the decision was made. “I will try to handle them in Berlin. I’m more experienced now.”

That extra experience certainly came to the fore as Masai executed the plan superbly. “We knew we’d have to run the last eight laps fast to run the finish out them,” she explains. “I was expecting the race to be harder and so with 3k to go I decided to push the pace higher because this way I could win.”

Indeed, it was only when the young Kenyan stretched her long, elegant legs to move from the back of the field to the front that the race raised itself above the pedestrian. With Momanyi for support she proceeded to run smoothly but swiftly, raising the pace from 3:09-3:10 per km to around 2:56-2:58. It was enough to burn the blistering finishing kicks out of Defar and Melkamu’s legs, and give herself a chance when it came to the final lap.

It was this move, says Masai, that meant she had strength to fight back from a boxed position 200m from home, and from fourth place with 100m to go, to outsprint her rivals on the line. “In the last 100m I saw that I was still strong and so I decided to push it,” she says. “I am so happy I was strong enough to win.”

Although Masai tries to play down talk of rivalry between Kenya and Ethiopia, her manager Ricky Simms explains that she was well aware of the history of the event, and in particular that the last non-Ethiopian gold medallist was Sally Barsosio in 1997, another member of his management group and of Masai’s training group.

“She knew that the last person to win apart from Ethiopians was Sally and that was important to her,” he says.

But there were other reasons, too, for her determination to win here, Simms explains. She was hurt after the Olympic final when she was in third place close to the end but just didn’t have enough strength to take a medal. And then she led the World Cross Country Championships this year until right at the death when passed by Kiplagat.

“She was worried that she was always going to be the bridesmaid and never the bride,” he says. “Well, now she’s the bride.

“I call her the Queen, and now she’s the Queen of Berlin,” he added when asked to reveal more about his latest champion’s character. “She appears shy but when you get to know her she has a lot of confidence. She’s very popular with her teammates.”

Her mental strength also comes from her background in a land of hardship, he says. She comes from the Mount Elgon area in Kenya where 600 people were killed last year in an internal conflict involving a guerrilla movement from the Sabaot tribe that she belongs too. She missed a flight to Belfast for a cross country race because of roadblocks and reports suggested her training was badly disrupted.

But she shakes her head at the memory, and backs away from the question with the lowered smile of a teenager still not quite used to the attention that comes with being a world champion.

At that point she escapes the prying microphones as Simms passes her the phone. “It’s Moses,” he says, ushering her away.

What’s the bet she put the handset to her mouth and raised her voice above its customary whisper to say, “Beat that, older brother.”

Matthew Brown for the IAAF