Tatyana Tomashova of Russia wins the 1500m final (© Getty Images)
When Tatyana Tomashova (RUS) decided to withdraw from the 1500m race in the last of this year’s Golden League meetings in Brussels, less than a week after she upset the pre-race favourite Sureyya Ayhan in Paris World Championships final, rumours were that she was afraid of the confrontation.
A week later in the World Athletics Final, Tomashova finished a distant seventh in a race won yet again by Ayhan in 3:57.72.
But he 1500m World champion was very surprised by the words of her Turkish rival after the World Athletics Final in Monaco.
“Ayhan said she proved she is the real world champion,” said Tomashova. “But I think she knows what happened to me in Paris and why I ran so badly in Monte-Carlo.
“I know that the whole of Turkey was disappointed by her loss in Paris. But that was a race where I adopted a special counter-attack tactic to try and slow her final acceleration.
“The World Championships final in Paris was the last competition in which I was actually running at my best.”
And that is when Tomashova tells everything about the horrible virus she was infected with during her staying at the World Championships in Paris.
“There is something wrong with the skin on my left leg, it is strangely sensitive, Tomashova told her coach on the morning of the Paris Final.
“Don’t worry, it is a good sign, it means that you are ready to win today,” joked her coach and after the victory he added: “Now you can see that I was right.”
But the next day she found she had big red spots on her leg, and two days later she saw her leg was covered with blisters.
On the eve of the Golden League meeting in Brussels, she made one more frightening discovery: some of her glands were swollen.
When a doctor examined her he was shocked by the state of the Russian runner and declared she had evidently caught some exotic virus infection.
The doctor advised her to put an end to her season and not to compete again this year as her immune system was clearly weakened. Tomashova therefore decided not to run in Brussels.
“Everything was becoming very serious,” said Tomashova. “When I returned to Moscow, the illness was progressing. It went into my blood. I began feeling weak and had pain in my hands and back.”
The doctors in Moscow gave her rather strong antibiotics and told her she would need 60 days to cure the illness.
But the Russian was already thinking of one last race, the World Athletics Final in Monaco.
The day before her race, Tomashova suffered from the side effects of the drugs she was taking to cure her virus and was feeling abnormally sleepy. Her coach advised her to withdraw from the race but Tomashova had already taken her decision.
“It was really difficult to run like at the end of a very heavy training session. I was feeling like I had already done 5x1000 meters.
“But I couldn’t stop running, I knew that it would mean a long lasting mental problem and so I decided to run to the finish.
“It is hard to say how I managed to finish the race. And now I do not know if I can run the Moscow challenge but I promised I would be there.
“I still have one big blister on my leg and it is filled with infection. Since Paris, I have had no training sessions.”
Tomashova is convinced that once she has healed and the new season has started, beating Ayhan will become easier for her as she is now familiar with the Turk’s tactics.
“Ayhan is rather fast at the beginning of the race but then she runs slower in order to try and save energy for her final effort but I am not going to let her to have it that easy.
“I’ll attack at the most sensitive moment.”
Nikolay Ivanov for the IAAF