HELSINKI, Finland, 15 August 2005 — For Britain and Kenya, one gold felt as good as 13 for the United States.
Hard-luck marathon runner Paula Radcliffe won her first major title yesterday and Benjamin Limo broke Ethiopia’s long-distance domination on the track during the last day of competition at the world athletics championships.
Moroccan-born Rashid Ramzi of Bahrain clinched an unprecedented middle distance double, adding the 800 meters to his 1,500 title by holding off Olympic champion Yuriy Borzakovskiy on the home stretch.
After failing to reach the final at last year’s Olympics, this was his breakthrough competition.
“I learned from my mistakes in Athens,” the 25-year old said.
Limo had the weight of Kenya on his shoulders but still managed to rush past Ethiopia’s Sileshi Sihine on the home straight to win Kenya’s only gold, still a huge disappointment for the African nation.
“I knew the last lap would be high speed, and I still felt OK,” Limo said.
Cuban Olympic champion Osleidys Menendez set a javelin world record of 71.70 meters on her first throw, improving on her old mark by 16 centimeters, to win the gold.
She was the third woman to win US$160,000 for setting a world record and winning gold. Olimpiada Ivanova set one in the 20-kilometer walk and fellow Russian Yelena Isinbayeva added another in the pole vault.
On a good day for Russia, 400 hurdles champion Yuliya Pechonkina won a second gold as the leadoff woman for her country’s 1,600 relay squad.
In the women’s 1,500, Russia reigned supreme with a triple, led by defending champion Tatyana Tomashova.
“We knew we all had a chance to be in the very top. We are so strong at the moment,” Tomashova said.
In the worst high jump competition in world championship history, Yuriy Krymarenko of Ukraine won the gold by clearing 2.32 meters.
A mere 2.29 was enough for Victor Moya of Cuba and Yaroslav Rybakov of Russia to share silver.
Radcliffe is already world record holder in the marathon, but what she really craved was a major title.
Head bobbing as ever, she thrived in damp, cool English-summer weather and led for almost the whole race before finishing well ahead of Catherine Ndereba of Kenya and Constantina Tomescu-Dita of Romania.
“It was my plan to keep a good pace going,” said Radcliffe, who finished in a championship-record of 2 hours, 20 minutes, 57 seconds.
Gone were the tears and heartbreak from the Athens Olympics, where she came in as favorite only to drop out of both the marathon and 10,000. And she was dogged by doubts in Helsinki after she finished ninth in the 10,000.
This time, her smile was flashing as she crossed the line and clasped her hands over her head, redemption finally delivered.
“A lot a things went wrong in Athens. I was a lot more confident here,” Radcliffe said.
And while the United States was wallowing in gold, Britain wallowed in misery throughout the championships, without any win until Radcliffe came through on the final day.
It pushed Britain up from 30th in the medal rankings to 15th, way behind the dominating Americans, who will be trying to make it the biggest gold rush at the world championships ever. With 13 golds, it already matched the record ahead of the 1,600-meter relay, which includes 400-meter world and Olympic champion Jeremy Wariner.
With two finals to go, the US team can only count on its men’s relay team for sure to get more medals, especially since the women’s 1,600 team was disqualified for lane infractions on Saturday.
The Russians were second with six golds and 20 overall, compared to the 24 overall of the United States.
It looked like the Russians would fill the top four places in the 1,500. They all stormed ahead with 300 meters to go, and it was only at the tape that early pace setter Yelena Soboleva was beaten. She finished fifth.
Yuliya Chizhenko was second and former 5,000 world champion Olga Yegorova took bronze.
