Habiba Ghribi of Tunisia and Marta Dominguez of Spain compete in the Women's 3000m Steeplechase final on Day 10 of the London 2012 Olympic Games on 6 August 2012 (© Getty Images )
NOTE: Due to disqualification(s) resulting from anti-doping rule violation(s) the result of this competition has changed: see official results here.
Repeating the tactics which won her the World Championships title in Daegu last year, Yuliya Zaripova led from gun-to-tape to add the Olympic Games crown to her collection in a 2012 World leading and personal best time of 9:06.72.
The 26-year-old, keeping the gold medal in Russian hands after Gulnara Galkina won the inaugural event four years ago in Beijing with the World record time of 8:58.81, ground out a fairly quick opening kilometre of 3:06.24 followed by a second of 3:05.36.
But throughout those five circuits of the stadium, she found her mainly talented African rivals easily following the pace including the eventual silver and bronze medallists, Habiba Ghribi and Sofia Assefa.
Surprisingly not one of them, despite the fast pacemaking but knowing how Zaripova had tactically dominated in her World gold medal success 12 months earlier, made any attempt to challenge her leadership as she again led them like lambs to the slaughter.
Zaripova, looking totally calm and collected approaching the penultimate water jump, accelerated very quickly and her injection of further speed saw her hit the bell looking calm and relaxed, before powering away to a 64.98 final circuit for an easy victory.
Although Ghribi tried ruffling her feathers down the backstraight particularly between 250m and the last 200m marker, the Tunisian's efforts were repelled and Zaripova left her a spent force when speeding down the final straight.
As she roared towards the finish line, behind her Ghribi coming off the last barrier, looked anxiously behind, but knew she was in a fail safe position as she crossed the line in national record time of 9:08.37.
That wasn't the case for the bronze medal with Ethiopia's Assefa having to fight desperately to hold off the late charge from an under-performing Milcah Chemos, a serious pre-race favorite, and winning the duel with her arch-Kenyan rival by a narrow 0.4sec in 9:09.84.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you everyone, thank you London," said Zaripova, an elated champion on a night when her more famous teammate 34-year-old Galkina dropped out.
Zaripova, who races sparingly, concentrating mainly on Championship events and is now the World's third fastest ever performer behind Galkina and another Russian Yekaterina Volkova the 2007 World champion, added: "I've been preparing for this event a long time. First the Euros' then the Worlds' - for years followed by years.
"Step by step I was believing in this moment and now I have it."
Ghribi, 13th four years ago, delighted at claiming Tunisia's first ever women's Olympic track and field medal, said: "I did think at one point I could win but the Russian girl was very, very good. I'm happy with the silver. It's a historic medal for Tunisian women especially."
Assefa who failed to get through the heats in Beijing, said: "The race was very fast - I didn't expect it to be as fast as this. But I managed to control everything. In the last 50m I was just pushing hard when I saw that someone (Chemos) was chasing me down."
Hiwot Ayalew well off the pace took fifth in 9:12.98 while behind her fellow Ethiopian Etenesh Diro (9:19.89), Antje Moldner-Schmidt (9:21.78) another German Gesa Kraus (9:23.52) and the USA's Emma Coburn (9:23.54) all achieved personal or seasonal bests.
David Martin for the IAAF
