| Ethiopia’s Defar regains 5,000m crown |
LONDON Ethiopian Meseret Defar dashed compatriot Tirunesh Dibaba’s dreams of another long-distance double by regaining her 5,000 metres title and an inspired US women’s 4x100 relay team shredded a 27-year-old world record on Friday.
Defar pulled away from her tired rival to triumph eight years after taking gold in Athens, crossing the line with her arms in the air before kissing a religious picture she had carried in her top and falling to the track in tears.
Dibaba, who took double gold in Beijing and successfully defended her 10,000 title on the opening day of the athletics competition, had to settle for bronze.
A day after Kenyan David Rudisha’s blistering 800 metres world record, another full house at the Olympic stadium was treated to a world relay best as the United States, anchored by Carmelita Jeter, scorched to gold.
The American quartet of Tianna Madison, Allyson Felix, Bianca Knight and Jeter clocked 40.82 seconds to win the title back for the first time since 1996, smashing East Germany’s world record which had stood since 1985.
“It is a relief, it is a joy. it is everything,” Olympic 200 champion Felix told reporters. “It is the most comfortable that I have seen this team. we were laughing, we were smiling...we have never been like that.”
America’s 28-year domination of the men’s Olympic 4x400 metres relay ended in thrilling fashion on Friday when the Bahamas overhauled them to snatch gold in a pulsating final leg.
Chris Brown, Demetrius Pinder, Michael Mathieu and Ramon Miller sped home in a Bahamian record time of 2 minutes 56.72 seconds, Miller passing American Angelo Taylor to huge roars from the crowd with just 50 metres left.
“Miller had a phenomenal leg. I really feel bad for these guys (team mates). I really didn’t hold up the tradition,” Taylor, who had been handed a lead of a couple of metres going into the last leg, told reporters.
Bryshon Nellum, Joshua Mance, Tony McQuay and Taylor claimed silver for the US with a season’s best time of 2:57.05, ending a run of seven successive golds in the event.
It was the Bahamas’ first gold in men’s track and field.
“No matter how small an axe, you can always bring down a big tree. We are a little axe and America is a giant tree, but we have done it,” the Bahamas’ Brown told reporters.
Trinidad and Tobago’s Lalonde Gordon, Jarrin Solomon, Ade Alleyne-Forte and Deon Lendore won bronze with hosts Britain just outside the medals in fourth after poor changeovers left them with too much to do.
The last time the US lost on the track in the Olympic event was in Helsinki, 1952 where they finished behind Jamaica.
They did not win in 1972 because they withdrew from the competition, or in 1980 when they boycotted the Moscow Games.
The US took gold in 2000 in Sydney but victory was eventually awarded to Nigeria after one of America’s sprinters in the race Antonio Pettigrew admitted to doping offences.
Frenchman Renaud Lavillenie soared over 5.97 metres, an Olympic record, to take pole vault victory while two golds were won by former dopers - Turkey’s Asli Cakir Alptekin in an eventful women’s 1,500 and Russia’s Tatyana Lysenko in the women’s hammer.
There was drama in the 1,500 metres where luckless American Morgan Uceny fell again in a championship final, having tumbled in last year’s world championships in Daegu, South Korea.
Reuters
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