Africa stands tall at Beijing meet

Some observers say there is potential for even greater achievement with better sports management

The nine-day IAAF World Championships in Beijing is over. Africa stood tall at the apex with a tally of 31 medals: 12 gold, 10 silver and nine bronze.

The haul started on the first day of the event. In the men's marathon, 19-year-old Eritrean Ghirmay Ghebreselassie showed his resilience against his star-studded African cohorts and completed the 42 kilometer race in 2 hr 12 min 27 sec. Finishing third was Munyo Solomon Mutai from Uganda.

Indeed, the Eritrean stunned the Kenyans, who were the event's favorites. In the lineup was world record holder Dennis Kimetto and previous record holder Wilson Kipsang, who was also upstaged by a Ugandan during the London Olympics Marathon in 2012. The two Kenyans floundered midway and failed to finish, leaving the teenager without much competition at the end.

Ghebreselassie is the youngest winner of the championship since its inception in 1983.

The women's marathon was won by Ethiopian Mare Dibaba. She captured the first women's marathon gold for the country, closely followed by Helah Kiprop of Kenya.

Dibaba finished with a time of 2:27:35, edging Kiprop by a second. It was no surprise as she headed into the race as the fastest entrant. Moreover, her world-leading clocking time had been set in China.

The other races saw the Africans battle it out with other nationalities in the long- and middle-distance races. The Africans also broke new frontiers in track and field disciplines.

In the 10,000-meter women's race, former Olympic double champion Viviane Cheruiyot made her return by seeing off her Ethiopian compatriot Gelete Burka. The last 150 meters determined the winner after the group huddled close together during much of the time, and at some point Molly Huddle of the US led in the second to last round.

Cheruiyot had missed much of the previous meets as she took time off to take care of her firstborn son. Another Ethiopian champion, Tirunesh Dibaba, missed out in Beijing as she is expecting her first child, too.

In the women's 5,000 meters, the Ethiopians reigned supreme with a podium sweep. Almaz Ayana won the race by more than 17 seconds. Second was Genzebe Dibaba, garnering an unprecedented double after winning the 1,500 meters.

According to Dibaba, the shorter event had aggravated an injury in her left foot, making it a difficult race. The indoor champion and world record holder showed her grit during the three and three-quarter lap competition that saw commonwealth champion Kenyan Faith Kipyegon take the silver medal.

But it was the men's final event that was sensational, as Asbel Kiprop employed his nerve-wracking, come-from-behind tactic to dip at the tape. In what has become his usual tactic, the 26-year-old beat Elijah Motonei Manangoi, also a Kenyan, capping the Kenyan medal tally at the end of the championship.

In the 800 meters, double Olympic champion and world record holder David Rudisha proved his skeptics wrong when he cruised to the finish line at 1:45:84. After being out in Moscow due to a niggling left-knee injury, the champion has struggled to recover his form and was even beaten to the finish line during the national trials by Ferguson Cheruiyot, who finished fifth in the Bird's Nest.

"It does not matter one's speed. Experience is usually key in this event," says Catherine Ndereba, Olympic marathon silver medalist and New York champion, during an interview on national broadcasting station KBC. It was the first time Ferguson Cheruiyot made the Kenyan team for the world meet.

In the 3,000-meter steeplechase, Kenya swept the podium with a one, two, three and four finish. Olympic champion Ezekiel Kemboi overtook his compatriots at the final round.

Hyvin Jepkemoi took the women's medal ahead of the event favorite, Tunisia's Habiba Ghribi, who ended up with silver.

Kenya also surprised many in the 400-meter hurdles when Nicholas Bett struck gold to end the 43-year-old drought for the race title in Africa. Uganda's John Akii-Bua won the race at the Olympic Games in Munich in 1972, with a bronze taken by Ugandan Davis Kamonga in 1996.

South Africa's Wayde Van Niekerk won the 400 meters after clocking his personal best of 43.96. The 23-year-old Capetonian led the country's medal standings, which showed an improvement on their performance at the world championship in Moscow in 2013, when they finished the competition with only one medal won by Jovan Cronje in the 1,500 meters. He took the bronze.

Egypt's Ihab Abdulrahman took second place in the men's javelin and made history for the North African country. History was also recorded when Kenyan Julius Yego threw 92.71 meters, the third-longest throw in history.

Kenya stood at the helm with a total of 16 medals. Seven of them gold, six silver and three bronze. Jamaica and the United States followed second and third. The East African country claimed its first overall title at the World Athletics Championships.

This closely rivaled their haul during the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, where they won 14 medals: six gold, four silver and four bronze.

In Kenya, President Uhuru Kenyatta tweeted: "Our young people have once again shown that they are as good as the world's best and brightest."

The Ethiopian team ranked fifth with a tally of eight medals: three gold, three silver and two bronze.

According to veteran sports journalist Elias Makori, Africa's general performance was below average. "For a huge economy such as South Africa that has impeccable infrastructure and huge sports funding, one gold medal and three bronze hardly reflects the country's potential. That Africa's most populous nation of Nigeria failed to win a single medal underscores the dearth of Africa's sporting performance," he says.

He points a finger at the poor management of athletics in these nations. He says that sports managers lack development programs that could realize the full potential of the countries' athletes. "South Africa and Nigeria are Africa's largest economies and issues of funding should not arise."

He says perennial infighting is crippling the sector. The two countries have previously fielded strong contenders in track and field events.

In Beijing, Kenya's Julius Yego bagged gold in the men's javelin with Egypt taking the silver. South Africa's Sunnette Viljoen took bronze in the women's category. "The continent could have done better with stronger representation in the high jump and pole vault, along with the long jump and triple jump," says Makori.

In preparation for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the sports writer says the continent must embrace specialized training and explore exchange programs with established athletics nations.

"Africa has two International Association of Athletics Federations high-performance centers, in Dakar (for sprints, jumps and throws) and Nairobi (for middle- and long-distance running). African countries must use these centers to better their performances. Budgetary allocations must also be increased because, by and large, sports in Africa is hugely underfunded."

He is optimistic that the cloud of doping that shadowed the world championship will be cleared soon. "The election of Briton Seb Coe, a known fighter against vice, as the new IAAF president offers fresh hope that the practice will be fought against more aggressively," he says adding that the doping control program implemented by IAAF in Beijing was impressive.

"This was the largest in a single sporting event by any sport since Moscow two years ago, with 1,405 doping controls carried out in Beijing. There is optimism that stringent measures are being employed to clean up the sport once again."

Lucymorangi@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily Africa Weekly 09/05/2015 page3)