Kiplagat claims first gold at worlds
Print Edition
Defending champion Edna Kiplagat of Kenya won the first gold medal of the world championships yesterday with a blazing late kick on a scorching afternoon.
Like the morning qualifying session, few fans were on hand to cheer as Kiplagat entered the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow well ahead of surprise silver-medalist Valeria Straneo of Italy, also a mother in her 30s.
As the runners made their way up to Red Square, they had few fans along the way to cheer them on during a sweltering afternoon with temperatures of around 30 degrees Celsius.
Kiplagat won in 2 hours, 25 minutes, 44 seconds. Kayoko Fukushi of Japan was third.
Kiplagat, 33, said that she was extremely happy to have made history by defending her title.
“I’m delighted I was able to defend my title successfully. I got confident I was going to win at the 40km mark when I upped my pace,” she said.
Olympic champion Tiki Gelana of Ethiopia never featured on her return to competition after being knocked over by a wheelchair competitor during this year’s London Marathon and was one of 23 not to finish in what were testing conditions.
Yesterday’s opening amid near-empty stands left it to Usain Bolt to set the nine-day event alight in the night when he opens his campaign for three sprint gold medals.
However, double defending champion Trey Hardee was dumped out of the decathlon as he no-heighted in a dramatic high-jump competition.
Hardee, who triumphed in Berlin and Daegu and took Olympic silver last year, was looking off the pace on the opening morning and went into the high jump, the fourth discipline, in fifth place. With a personal best of 1.99 meters it is among his weaker events but it was still a shock to see him fail three times at 1.90.
Fellow American and Olympic champion Ashton Eaton led after three events but managed only 1.99 to slip back to third.
His 20-year-old compatriot Gunnar Nixon, who earlier posted a personal best long jump of 7.80 meters, had the best clearance with 2.14 to take the overall lead on 3,611 points at the two-day event. Germany’s Michael Schrader was second on 3,501 with Eaton on 3,495
There was further bad news for the Americans when Jeremy Taiwo had to pull out with a knee injury after the shot put.
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