On a cool, breezy Tuesday evening in the Peruvian capital, Ethiopia's Medina Eissa put the pressure on her rivals to successfully defend her 5,000m title in the highlight of the opening day of the IAAF World Athletics U-20 Championships in Lima on Tuesday.
Eissa's winning time of 14 minutes 39.71 seconds smashed Genzebe Dibaba's championship record, which had stood since 2010, by more than 28 seconds and gave her a wide margin of victory over compatriot Mekedes Alemeshete. The pair led from the start, alternating between pacemakers, and finished 2,000 meters with a 40-meter lead in 5 minutes 58.59 seconds.
By the 3,000m mark, reached in 8 minutes 57.28 seconds, the pair had built a 70-metre lead, and the lead only grew from there, with Eissa pulling away from her Ethiopian compatriot with 3 1/2 laps to go, lapping most of the field and giving Ethiopia its eighth women's 5,000m gold medal in the last nine Olympics.
“I'm very happy with this win and achieving a post-Olympic championship record,” said Eissa, who placed seventh in the 5,000m in Paris. “I wanted to be champion. I've been wanting to make this dream come true for months.”
Aremeshete finished next in 14 minutes 57.44 seconds, while Uganda's Charity Cherop took the bronze medal in a personal best time of 15 minutes 25.02 seconds.
The men's 5,000 meters saw a completely different race. With early moves meaningless, it came down to a sprint at the end, with seven of them grouping together as the bell rang. As the runners turned the final corner and sprinted, Andrew Kiptoo Alamisi of Kenya took off like a bird, winning in 13:41.14 ahead of Abdisa Faisa of Ethiopia (13:41.56) and Kenneth Kiprop of Uganda (13:41.73).
In the mixed 4x400m final, Australia won with ease, finishing first in an Oceania record time of 3:19.27, with Jordan Gilbert, Bella Pasquali, Jack Deguara and Sofia Gregorevic controlling the race. Poland took silver in 3:20.44 and China took bronze in 3:21.27 with a strong final run from Liu Yinglan.
Australia aims to win the mixed 4x400m at the World U20 Championships in Lima (©Enzo Santos Barreiro)
In the men's shot put, it was no surprise that the Netherlands won their first gold medal in 24 years, but Dutch U-20 record holder Jannik Rolvink, who topped the field list by more than a metre, finished in fifth place with 19.88 metres, which was not the result many had expected.
The brightest moment was his teammate Jarno van Dalen, who at 18 years old improved his personal best by 36 centimetres with a jump of 20.76 metres in the first round. This record remained unbeaten in the following rounds, but South Africa's JL van Rensburg took silver with a new personal best of 20.74 metres in the final round. Germany's Georg Harpf took bronze with 20.28 metres.
After the four heptathlon events, Croatia's Jana Koščak topped the rankings with 3,536 points. The 2022 European U-18 champion recorded times of 13.80 seconds in the hurdles and 1.81 seconds in the high jump earlier in the day, as well as 12.01 meters in the shot put and 25.12 seconds in the 200 meters in the afternoon session.
Second place went to Lucia Acklin of Switzerland, who shot up the rankings later in the day with a shot put of 13.42m and a personal best of 24.42m in the 200m, giving her 3472 points. Mia Cheri of Australia was third with 3385m and Adela Tocakova of the Czech Republic was close behind in fourth with 3351m. Tocakova hit a season's best of 24.14m in the 200m.
“It was a long day but I'm happy,” Koszczak said. “I ran a solid 200m and good in the high jump, but the hurdles and shot put could have been a little better. It was a long journey with a lot of travel, changing weather and time of day. It's the World Championships so I'm not going to complain.”
In the women's 100m semi-final, Alana Reid of Jamaica won in 11.44 seconds (-0.3 m/s), easing off the gas just before the finish line to beat Justina Tiana Eyakpobeyan of Nigeria (11.56) and Aleksandra Stoylova of Australia (11.58) to progress to the semi-finals. Kishauna Niles of Barbados and Nia Wedderburn-Goodison of Great Britain were the fastest qualifiers, both clocking 11.39 seconds in the first semi-final, beating Viwe Zinke of South Africa (11.49). Chelsea Kadiri of Germany clocked 11.52 seconds in the third semi-final to win the race, beating Adaeja Hodge of the British Virgin Islands (11.59).
Pripol Bonsoon of Thailand, who placed fourth in the event two years ago, was the fastest qualifier for the men's 100m final, clocking 10.30 seconds (-0.6 m/s) in the semi-finals to beat South Africa's Bradley Nkoana by thousandths of a second. Jamaica's Gary Card came in third in 10.39 seconds.
DeAndre Daly of Jamaica won the first semi-final in 10.34 seconds (-0.9 m/s) while Naoki Nishioka of Japan took second place and automatic berth in 10.43 seconds. Bayanda Walaza of South Africa recovered from an early stumble to win the third semi-final in 10.33 seconds (-0.2 m/s), ahead of Teddy Wilson of Great Britain (10.35) and He Jinxian of China (10.36).
In the men's javelin heats, China's Wang Xiaobo took the lead with a throw of 73.83m, followed by Slovenia's Tom Tersek with 73.37m and Germany's Oskar Janicke with 73.02m. Ukraine's Ilya Sayevskiy was the only thrower to beat the automatic qualifying mark of 72.50m.
In the women's pole vault heats, four athletes performed flawlessly to clear 4.10m, with no automatic qualification of 4.25m required. Molly Heywood of the United States qualified with 4.10m and cleared it on her first try, so only needed one vault to qualify for the final. Joining her in the heats were Mia Tillman of Estonia, Tryphena Hewett of Australia and Magdalena Lauter of Austria.
In the women's 3,000m steeplechase, favorite Sembo Almayew produced a dominant performance, winning comfortably in 9:30.59 ahead of Diana Chepkemoi of Kenya and Nancy Chepkwului of Uganda (9:49.06). Filehiwot Gesese of Ethiopia won the other race in 10:00.96, ahead of Lois Chekwemoi of Uganda (10:01.85) and Sharon Chepkemoi of Kenya (10:07.59).
Cathal Dennehy at the World Athletics Championships
