Hicham El Guerrouj's superior sprinting speed
saw him win a second Olympic gold medal with a spectacular finish in Athens on
Saturday night.
El Guerrouj, who finally won the 1500m title at his third attempt last
Tuesday, added the 5000m crown in a cat-and-mouse confrontation with arch-rival
Kenenisa Bekele.
El Guerrouj's success was the first Games 1500m-5000m double since the
legendary Finn Paavo Nurmi completed the feat 80 years ago.
His fantastic finish, prevented Bekele himself becoming the first athlete to
score wins over both 5000m and 10000m, last achieved by fellow Ethiopian Miruts
Yifter in 1980.
El Guerrouj ended a race which started at a snail's pace victoriously with the
relentless speed of an express train.
"I was afraid the rhythm of the race would be fast but my strategy worked and
I was able to cope with this fear," said El Guerrouj.
Thwarting the challenges of Bekele and Eliud Kipchoge, he won ahead of his
fellow Africans in a time of 13 minutes, 14.39 seconds.
El Guerrouj was beaten by Kenya's Kipchoge for the world title three days
short of a year ago in Paris, Bekele finished third, and he always looked liked
being the master on this occasion.
A slow first kilometre of only 2mins 58.46secs barely drew breath out of any
of the contestants and, although the race did eventually speed up, it was
tailor-made for El Guerrouj.
Bekele made his strike with 250m remaining, successfully passing Kipchoge and
- accelerating even with half a lap left - drew away with El Guerrouj.
But the Ethiopian's third kick on the home straight was not as decisive and El
Guerrouj drew alongside his shoulder.
Then the 1500m champion, just under 50 metres from the line, pulled away from
Bekele for a narrow victory.
There was a massive shock in the men's 4x100m relay when Great Britain - none of
whose team reached either the 100m or 200m finals - won the gold medal.
The quartet of Jason Gardener, Darren Campbell, Marlon Devonish and Mark
Lewis-Francis won ahead of favourites the USA, in a season's best of 38.07secs.
Anchor man Lewis-Francis brilliantly held off the challenge of fast-finishing
former world record-holder Maurice Greene, by one hundredths of a second.
That gave Britain their first success in the sprint relay since the 1912
Stockholm Games, the year it was first included on the athletics programme.
The Americans were trailing going into the final leg, largely because Justin
Gatlin and Coby Miller had a terrible third changeover, and they were followed
home by Nigeria who clocked 38.23secs.
It was a tremendous night for Britain.
Kelly Holmes added the 1,500m gold to the one she won in the 800m on Monday,
doing the middle-distance double.
She hit the front with 120 metres remaining and pulled clear to win in three
minutes 57.90 seconds.
The double has been done twice before, by two Russians, with Svetlana
Masterkova at the 1996 Games and Tatyana Kazankina at Montreal 1976 achieving
the remarkable feat.
Natalya Yevdokimova of Russia set a fast pace to ensure that the first six
finishers bettered four minutes for the metric mile distance.
The rush for the line behind Holmes was won by last year's world champion
Tatyana Tomashova.
The Russian clocked 3mins 58.12secs and held off the challenge of Romania's
Maria Cioncan by a margin of 0.27secs.
In capturing the title, Holmes smashed her seven-year-old British record.
"Words cannot express how I feel," she said.
"The 800m was a total shock and today has just blown me away. I have been
training specifically for the 1,500m and the hardest thing tonight was to
focus."
Coming into the men's 800m final tonight, Yuriy Borzakovskiy was looking to
make amends for losing two major championship titles by leaving his sprint
finish too late.
The scenario seemed likely to let the Russian down again, when coming into the
final straight he was well off the pace of the leaders.
But Borzakovskiy, sixth in Sydney four years ago, rallied brilliantly with 50
metres remaining to win his first major gold medal outdoors.
He went wide and passed South African Mbulaeni Mulaudzi, Denmark's Wilson
Kipketer and Moroccan Mouhssin Chehibi who were caught unawares as they jockeyed
for the medals.
His surge carried the former welder to victory in 1:44.45, ahead of
Commonwealth champion Mulaudzi who clocked 1:44.61.
World record holder Kipketer finished in a time of 1:44.65, the Kenyan-born
athlete taking bronze.
The USA were convincing winner's of the women's 4x400m relay for a third
successive Games, clocking 3:19.01.
The quartet's performance pulled them well clear of runners-up Russia who
finished in 3:20.16.
Jamaica (3:22.00) were third, on a night when all three medal-winning squads
produced their quickest times of the year.
mfl
Three-time javelin champion Jan Zelezny failed to make the final cut of eight
throwers and admitted that he had not expected to win another title.
"I did not dream about a fourth gold, I came to have fun," said Zelezny who
won his first Olympic when he finished second in Seoul 16 years ago.
But the brilliant Czech, ninth with a best effort of 80.59m, admitted: "The
way I lost is disappointing. It was not my day.
"My technique was not okay due to a troubled shoulder," an injury which
restricted him to just two pre-Games competitions.
Andreas Thorkildsen won the title for Norway with a personal best 86.50m throw
ahead of Vadims Vasilevskis.
The Latvian also produced his best-ever effort of 84.95m with Sergey Makarov
winning the bronze medal for a second successive Olympics with 84.84m.
There was a shock defeat for South Africa's high jump favourite Hestrie Cloete
at the hands of Yelena Slesarenko.
The Russian, who added two centimetres to her previous best, won the with a
height of 2.06m.
Cloete, a silver-medallist for a second successive Games, won on countback
from Viktoriya Styopina of Ukraine as both had cleared 2.02m.
After the hiccup in the sprint relay, the United States made no mistakes when
winning the men's 4x400m event easily.
Otis Harris, Derrick Brew, individual 400m winner Jeremy Wariner and Darold
Williamson flew to a winning time of 2:55.91.
The fourth-fastest time ever - and quickest since the Americans set the world
record of 2:54.20 six years ago - scored them a runaway victory.
The silver and bronze medallists were Australia and Nigeria who both ran
season's bests finished 40 metres behind in 3:00.60 and 3:00.90, respectively.
end
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