The review of European performances at the world championships in Moscow continues with another successful day for European athletes, especially from the host nation of Russia.
Day Seven, Friday August 16, Farah doubles up
Four golds for Europe as the Championships started edging towards its close and for Mo Farah, the completion of the long-distance track double for the second time in a year.
The noise was immense as he added the second of those titles here as he defended his 5000m crown from Daegu with a fine run.
Like his 10,000m six days earlier, his performance was packed with extreme confidence. He knew when to break, with 650m to go, and he knew how much to hold back to fend of his rivals. It was a dramatic home straight as Farah dug in to find every sinew but he had enough to win in 13:26.98 from Hagos Gebrhiwet, of Ethiopia, who was second in 13:27.26, with Kenya’s Isiah Koech third in 13:27.26.
His victory made him only the second man in history to win the double-double of 5,000m and 10,000m golds at both the Olympics and World Championships, putting him alongside Ethiopian Kenenisa Bekele.
Europe also celebrated gold in the men’s Shot Put, men’s Long Jump and women’s Hammer.
Germany’s David Storl was the defending champion and he had missed out on Olympic gold by three centimetres in London when he finished second behind Tomasz Majewski.
Storl defended his world title by taking gold again from his fourth round effort of 21.73m. The distance overtook American Ryan Whiting, who had led from the first round with 21.57m, which brought him silver, with Canada’s Dylan Armstrong third with 21.34m.
The Russian national anthem played once again to the home crowd as Aleksandr Menkov added world gold to his European Indoor title from March with an excellent win in the long jump. He sealed victory with a leap of 8.56m in the fifth round, a distance which broke the national record. He had been in front at that stage anyway after jumps of 8.52m and 8.43m and this effort just sealed the glory.
The day of Russian success was not over as Tatyana Lysenko, the Olympic champion and defending world champion, eventually justified her favourite’s tag in the hammer with a victory in a close competition.
It seemed she had all but secured the win with her first round throw of 77.58m but in the third round Poland’s Anita Wlodarczyk responded with 77.79m. Now the battle for gold was on and the fourth round proved the key, but only just for Lysenko, whose 78.80m was a Championship and national record and brought with it victory, but Wlodarczyk also broke her national record with 78.46m.
Russia rounded off the day with a bronze in the men’s 4 x 400m relay as Maksim Dyldin, Lev Mosin, Sergey Petukhov and Vladimir Krasnov combined for third in 2:59.90 as the USA won in 2:58.71 and Jamaica were second in 2:59.88.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
I never thought in my career I would achieve something like this.
Mo Farah