Champion UAE athlete smashes meet record and qualifies for Worlds in women’s 5,000m
The UAE struck another gold, second overall, on the final day of five-day 20th Asian Track and Field Championships at the Shiv Chhatrapati Stadium in Pune, India on Sunday evening.
Making it a golden double for her and the country, Bethlem Desaleyn cruised to the women’s 5,000 metres title in a meet record of 15min 12sec on Sunday. The previous meet record belonged to Tejit Daba of Bahrain who clocked 15:22:48 in the 19th chapter in Kobe in 2011.
The Asian mark is 14:28:09 set in 1997 by China’s Jiang Bo in Shanghai. Bethlem’s effort also enables her to qualify for the next World Championships in Category A listings. The gruelling event on Sunday in Pune, run in heavy monsoon showers and strong crosswinds, saw the former Ethiopian star who won gold in the 1,500 metres on Friday night, burst into a final 1km sprint to leave the rest of the field gasping for breath.
On Friday, Bethlem saw her training colleague Alia Saeed, also of Ethiopian origin, occupy the silver medallist’s berth on the podium following the women’s 1,500m.
Alia missed out on the bronze in the 5,000 on Sunday by the narrowest of margins.
“We have trained and worked hard throughout the season in varying conditions. The rains here helped us in the early parts of the race,” Bethlem told Khaleej Times on Sunday soon after the race. “Beating the meet record and qualifying for the Worlds makes me and Alia most grateful to all the support and encouragement given to us by the UAE Althletics Federation.”
Ahmad Al Kamali, UAE Athletics Federation president while speaking to the Khaleej Times from Pune said: “Bethlem’s success is so encouraging. With Alia, the duo have shown what hardwork and systematic planning can do.
Bethlem’s Asian meet record, qualification for the world meet and the breaking of the UAE national record of 15:31 held by Alia, all go to prove the point that careful planning and strategy go a long way to success at the international level.”
“We had a team meeting to chalk out the strategy for the race where we were to use the pace set by the Bahraini runner. Both Bethlem and Alia were told by Ethiopian former world champ Abdi Bele, the coach, to lie low initially in the mid pack,” Al Kamali added.
“From the 4km stage, our girls burst out of the packs to go ahead with Bethlem gaining in her strides quite smoothly thanks the rhythm she gained by hanging around in the trailing pack,” Al Kamali, a former UAE long distance runner and national coach, said.
The UAE took part in the Pune edition with just two female and five male athletes including the promising 16-year old Khalifa Ibrahim whose main aim was to gain valuable international experience in the men’s 400m.
The UAE finished in a creditable seventh position (2 golds and one silver) in the medals tally in this meet which saw nearly 500 athletes from 43 nations take part.