Only 23 days to go for 2019 Doha World Athletics Championship

ADDIS ABABA – With only 23 days to go until the start of the Doha 2019 IAAF World Athletics Championships, the news of the Ethiopian participants are flowing one after the other. Doha 2019 is set to take place in Qatar from 27 September to 6 October.

Once again the Ethiopian athletes proved their excellence in Morocco. Hereafter the only big game that awaits the national athletes before the the 2020 Tokyo Olympics will be the Doha World Championship.

With Ethiopian men’s athletes Hagos Gebrehiwot, Selemon Barega and Yomif Kejelcha are at the center of attention in 5,000 and 10,000 meters the Ethiopian women representatives are coming to the fore.

The men’s runners look strong up to this day but fear is hovering over the women’s veteran athletes. Almaz Ayana was quoted as saying she is physically and mentally in good shape to defend her title in Doha. “I am not fully recovered from my ankle injury but slowly I am doing fine,” she said. Though she is optimistic to go to Doha the campaign is no so easy, in her view.

Even if Almaz is not ready for Doha we have new talented and young athlete to equally replace Almaz. The fear is very minimal and in the eyes of the professional in the field the possibility of appearing with young athletes in 10, 000 meters is likely.

Well, Almaz proved to be effective in all races she had participated. As she puts it by working hard to climb to the summit of global distance running, to winning in the 10,000m on her season’s debut at the IAAF World Championships London 2017opened her ability to overcome challenges in a short of span of time. It should not be forgotten that she managed to easily win the world and Olympic 10,000m titles with relatively minor challenges.

Encouraged by how hard work could reap rewards, she moved to Addis Ababa and joined the Defence Force Club. A coach there advised her to try the steeplechase and she quickly advanced to the international level. In 2010 she placed fifth in the steeplechase at the IAAF World U20 Championships in Moncton, Canada and later that year she shattered the world U20 record with a stunning 9:22.51 for third in Brussels.

Inspired by listening to the feats of Ethiopian distance running legend Tirunesh Dibaba on the radio, Almaz dreamed of starring in another event.

She’s collected victories in Rome and Rabat clocking 3:56.28 and 3:55.47, respectively, two of the three fastest times of the year.

“I always wanted to be a 5,000m athlete,” she says after winning at the World Championship in Beijing. She started running the 10,000m for the first time at the Rio Olympics. In her debut she won gold medal with the Olympic record in 2016 at Rio.

This time though she recovered the fear remains. “I was afraid to run because I was scared of how my knees would respond,” she said. “I didn’t know if I would feel pain,” adding “The doctor did not give a recovery percentage but he said you will shortly recover,” explains Almaz, who was reassured by his words. “I actually felt happy after the operation because I knew at least the problem had been fixed.”

The Ethiopian national athletics coaches are aware of this problem. Even the federation who closely monitor the athletes’ day to day performance is aware of the difficulties that Almaz has been facing in the last one or so years.

That is why the coaches are closely looking for a competent athlete who can replace the veterans if they are not ready.

The others tough contenders in the women’s event in Doha are likely to be Genzebe Dibaba and Letesenbet Gidey. Genzebe Dibaba has illustrated that she’s once again nearing her form of 2015, the year when she broke the world 1,500m record and later raced to victory at the World Championships.

The women’s 10,000m, won by Letesenbet Gidey, was of a similarly high standard with the first 10 women – nine of whom are from Ethiopia – finishing inside 31:00.

With only 23 days to go for Doha tough job is awaiting the national athletics coaches and athletes themselves.

The Ethiopian Herald September 3, 2019

 BY SOLOMON BEKELE

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