The women’s 1500 metres in Athens promises to be one of the most open of track events at the Olympic Games. In a season where there has been no single woman dominating the event, and few outstanding performances, the medallists could be drawn from a pool of at least a dozen competitors.
Elvan Abeylegasse, the Ethiopia-born 22-year-old who now represents Turkey, tops the world list this year, the only sub-four-minute performer with 3:58.28, but she may yet opt to race the 5000m, at which she is also the leading performer in 2004.
The absence of her team mate, European champion Sureyya Ayhan - IAAF World Rankings Event number one - will certainly alter the tactical approach to the final. Ayhan’s front-running will not be available to set the pace for the likes of Russia’s Tatyana Tomashova, whose devastating speed over the final half-lap of the final in Paris last year won her the IAAF World title.
Tomashova goes into Athens, though, as only the third fastest of the three Russians, behind Olga Yegorova and Natalya Yevdokimova, and it is no entirely impossible that Russia might land a clean sweep of the medals here, although Poland’s Wioletta Janowska and Britain’s Kelly Holmes may yet have something to say about that.
Holmes, the Sydney bronze medallist at 800m, has agonised long and hard over which event to contest in Athens, not knowing whether to stick with the 800m, at which in Paris last year she won a silver, eight years after she first stood on the medal podium at an IAAF World Championships.
Holmes had all her usual confidence knocked out of her when she tumbled to the track in the 1500m final at the IAAF World Indoor Championships in Budapest earlier this year. She says it has taken her the whole summer to recover her usual poise.
“The quandary boils down to this,” Holmes said before leaving the British holding camp in Cyprus. “I could hope to win a medal in the 800m, but won’t know how much it will take out of me. Or I could just go for the 1500m and then regret afterwards that I didn’t go in the 800m.”
“You don’t want to live with regrets.”
SD
