Mo Farah
It was a busy Saturday at Beijing with several finals. Ashton Eaton met everybody’s expectations and broke his own world record in Decathlon. The American dished out his greatest performance in the history of the event by scoring 9045 points, leaving his closest rival Canada’s Damian Warner 350 points behind. An hour later, Jamaica wrapped up men and women’s 4×100 relays in an astonishingly dominant fashion. First, Shelly Ann Fraser-Pryce anchored the women’s team and a little while later, track and field’s biggest star Usain Bolt added another gold to his 100m and 200m by majestically anchoring the last 100m in 4x100m relay for men. Great Britain’s Mo Farah won the 5000m gold and made it two at 2015 Beijing, already taken the 10000m gold last Monday. Maria Kuchina of Russia leapt 2.01m in high jump to win the gold from Croatia’s Blanka Vlasic. In men’s discus throw, the gold was won by Poland’s Piotr Malachowski while his compatriot Robert Urabenk took the bronze. In men’s 50km race walk final, Slovakia’s Matej Toth won the gold and Australia’s Jared Tallent took the silver. Marina Arzamasova of Belarus won women’s 800m gold while Canada’s Melissa Bishop won the silver.
World record holder and reigning world & Olympic champion Ashton Eaton produced one of his finest performances in decathlon on Saturday. After 5 events on Friday, Eaton had amassed sufficient points and he was determined to do everything that could lead him to breaking his own world record. But it is not every day that world records can be broken and Eaton knew it well. Therefore, he needed to avoid all potential dangers in the remaining 5 events on Saturday. In the last decathlon event of 1500m, he was required to beat the time of 4:18.25 minutes. He lost the first place to Algeria’s Larbi Bourrada but finished the race in 4:17.52 and created the world record by reaching 9045 points. There were emotional scenes soon thereafter, but the efforts of Eaton’s brilliance in track and field had been the result of such outbursts.
Jamaica’s Usain Bolt won his third gold medal of 2015 World Championship by anchoring the 4×100 relay team to the top finish in the event. The big Jamaican has hogged the limelight beginning with the 100m gold and followed it up with a grander performance in 200m. On the penultimate day, the superstar took the baton after 300 meters and broke away from the pack majestically. Riding on Bolt’s fantastic run, the Jamaican team won the gold followed by China and Canada. The Bolt-Gatlin rivalry ceased in the event as USA quartet stood disqualified for an exchange zone violation in baton transfer.
A little while earlier, the 4×100 women’s relay was also won by the Jamaican team. The speed of the Jamaican women could not be matched by their rivals. Dafne Schippers, who won the 200m gold on Friday, didn’t have the support from her colleagues in Netherlands’ squad, which also lacked the experience as evidenced by earning disqualification for exchange zone violation. Jamaican Pocket Rocket Fraser-Pryce anchored her team to an emphatic win leaving USA at second place. The bronze was surprisingly won by women from Trinidad and Tobago.
Like Bolt did in short sprints, Mo Farah of Great Britain proved his superiority over his rivals in long distances. Having already taken the 10000m gold on Monday, Farah dished out another super performance in men’s 5000m final to win his third consecutive World Championship title. But the Briton had a scare in the last 100 meters of the race from Kenya’s Caleb Ndiku, who posed a huge challenge to Farah. But the celebrated athlete brought out his reserve to upstage Ndiku.
In other finals on Saturday, men’s 50km race-walk gold medal was won by Slovakia’s Matej Toth in 3:40:32 hours. Toth needed to visit the toilet during the race but it didn’t matter because, when he came out, he created an even bigger gap between himself and the second-placed Australian Jared Tallent. The Australian had to rest content with the silver. Marina Arzamasova of Belarus won women’s 800m gold while Canada’s Melissa Bishop won the silver. Kenya’s defending champion Eunice Sum was pushed to third place. Poland’s Piotr Malachowski’s won the gold in men’s discus with a throw of 67.40m. The silver went to Belgium’s Philip Milanov while bronze was taken by another Pole Robert Urbanek. Russia’s Maria Kuchina won the women’s high jump gold with a 2.01m leap and disappointed Croatia’s Blanka Vlasic, the 2008 Olympic Games silver medalist. Vlasic had to settle for the silver medal once again at the Birds Nest.