Gotytom Gebreslase marks Ethiopian dominance at IAAF World Youth Championships – Athletics news
As the first track final at the IAAF World Youth Championships kicked-off, it was the 16-year-old runner, Gotytom Gebreslase, who marked history for noting a world record time in the 3000m run. The Ethiopian’s success has highlighted the true competitive
spirit of the prestigious athletics event being held in Lille, France.
Gebreslase, who is using the event as a springboard to emerge at the world athletics arena, had an earlier personal best of sixteen minutes and 9.09 seconds. She accomplished the feat at the high altitude of Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, about two months
ago. In Lille, the results produced by her were outstanding as for beating Ziporah Wanjiru Kingori, her close rival from Kenya by a margin of 0.46 seconds, she stopped the clock in 8 minutes and 56.36 seconds. Along with both top finishers, another prominent
athlete who marked a new PB was Caroline Chepkoech Kipkirui from Kenya, who also noted a sub nine finish and ended the race in eight minutes and 58.63 seconds.
The meet that produced dramatic results, proved to be an interesting battle right from the gun as the initial leader of the grapple comprised of Katsuki Suga and Tomoka Kimura, the Japanese duo, who went on to set a formidable and challenging speed of two
minutes and 58.83 seconds per kilometre. Had the race been culminated with this initial speed, the meet could have produced a truly unbeaten finish at the world meet arena. However, as the race lingered on, the contestants found it quite difficult to sustain
with the starting pace and went on to virtually drag their feet for marking a faster finish. Except a handful of runners, almost all participants marked rather slower runs.
Those runners who kept their pace with the initial momentum, even if were unsuccessful in bagging the title, surprisingly improved their personal bests with a significant margin. Interestingly, Gebreslase, the winner of the race, seemed no where even close
to the leader of the run unless it was the final round where she unleashed her powers to overcome the entire field.
With 25m to go, the strength of her strides was worth seeing, as she looked to be the sole runner who had no match on the field. With her success, it has become rather evident that with such a formidable start to the event, Ethiopia is going to finish well
on the table tally in this seventh edition of the IAAF World Youth Championships.
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