| 2005 |
Kenenisa Bekele has given the 29th Memorial
Van Damme its ultimate climax. The Ethiopian athlete broke the world record
at the 10k. Saif Saaeed Shaheen from Qatar has run a world
year best at the 3000m steeple of Memorial Van Damme in Brussels. In the
same discipline Simon Vroemen broke the Europeean record.
At the 5k Meseret Defar also ran a world year best.
Bekele had made a promise. He would break his own world
record at the 10k in Brussels and so he did. Bekele stopped the clock at
26:17.54 and sharpened his previous record with no less than nearly three
seconds.
Saif Saaeed Shaheen finished at 7:55.51 and iņproved the
7:56.34 he ran on the 8th of July in Rome. The Dutch Simon
Vroemen was second in 8:04.95, enough to improve his own European
record (8:06.91 at 19 July 2002 in Monaco). Pieter Desmet
(8:29.80) and Krijn Van Koolwijk (8:37.86) finished in
the latter half of the pack.
At the 5k for women,
Meseret Defar also ran a world's year best. The Olympic
champion from Athens was better than Berhane Adere and
Ejegayehu Dibaba with 14:28.98. Veerle
Dejaeghere had to stop her race.
The 100 meters for women was
won by Christine Arron (10.97). There was no match for
Justin Gatlin at the men's (9.99). Kim
Gevaert (22.99) was taken by surprise by Cydonie
Mothersill (22.94) at the 200m and only just missed out on a party for
the Belgian audience. "I really wanted to win for the audience, I tried, I was
really close," according to a tired Gevaert. Brandon Simpson
was the fastest at the 400m.
The 800m for women was won rather
surprisingly by Mayte Martinez. At the 1500m Daniel
Kipchirchir Komen beat world champion Rachid Ramzi.
Joeri Jansen (3'36"04) came in 13th, Tim Clerbout
(3'39"11) 15th.
In the pole vault Yelena Isinbayeva didn't manage to get
above 5m02. The Russian couldn't improve her own world record. Tatiana
Lebedeva has won the triple jump and is still on track for the
1 million dollar jackpot. She only needs the victory in Berlin. |
