Ethiopians athletes hit back

By Mutwiri Mutuota

To use football parlance, Ethiopia netted the first ‘goal’ in their long running distance track rivalry with Kenya at the just-concluded World Indoor Championships in Doha.

Ethiopia put their noses ahead as this year’s battlefront opened by bagging three gold and two bronze medals while their adversaries managed to secure two silver and an equal number of bronze.

After Kenya thumped Ethiopia at last Augusts’ World Championships in Berlin, Doha offered a platform for them to hit back and the women’s 3,000m final was a race that epitomised their desire to get even.

Here, Meseret Defar was itching to avenge her title loss to Vivian Cheruiyot in Berlin and the diminutive Ethiopian paid the compliment back in style, running 8:51.17 for gold to lead the women’s 5,000m champion (8:51.85) to the altar.

Counter Kenyans

"There was tension at the beginning because there were a lot of expectations for us to get over Berlin," Sentayehu Ejigu, who was fourth in the Berlin 5,000m, told IAAF after the race.

"We had a plan with Meseret to counter the Kenyans and I am so happy that Meseret won the race and that Ethiopia got the gold," the bronze winner ahead of Sylvia Kibet (silver Berlin) added.

"I changed my tactics: at first I was thinking about a fast race, but then I saw it would be better to wait for the final kick, and that worked well," the winner told the same website after Saturday’s finale.

Elsewhere, Deresse Mekonnen neutered the challenge of Africa 1,500m champion, Haron ‘Landcruiser’ Keitany who settled for bronze to retain his World Indoor title in the men’s metric mile while teenager Kalkidan Gezahegne won the women’s event where Irene Jelagat finished fifth. Sole 800m runner, Boaz Lalang won Kenya’s second while debutant Sammy Alex Mutahi secured the third medal in the 3,000m final.

Radical changes

"We need to take the World Indoors more seriously. We don’t have indoor facilities but we should change our approach. Under the circumstances, our team performed well," Athletics Kenya (AK) general secretary, David Okeyo, said while congratulating the Doha team expected home last night.

Earlier, AK chair, Isaiah Kiplagat who was in Doha told FeverPitch that radical changes need to be made in selection and preparation of subsequent teams for the closed circuit global competition but for the Class of 2010, it came too late.

The red, green and black have the chance to ‘equalise’ in under a fortnight when the two protagonists whose rivalry has illuminated the sport clash at the 38th World Cross in Bydgoszcz, Poland.

Since February 26, the squad of 24 have been training in and around Embu and housed at Kigari Teachers Training College almost under a shroud of secrecy.

FeverPitch attempts to obtain Ethiopia’s complete line-up (they only selected half the team at their Trials) hit the wall since like their rivals; mum is the word as far as preparations for Poland are concerned setting up the stage of another bruising contest.