Bekele gets long-distance double at worlds, beats defending champion Lagat in 5,000

Bekele gets long-distance double at worlds

BERLIN — Kenenisa Bekele needed one of the biggest finishing kicks of his career to hold off defending champion Bernard Lagat and win the 5,000 meters at the world championships, giving him a second long-distance double in as many years.

The Olympic champion at 5,000 and 10,000 extended his reign over the two distances Sunday. He first had to fight off a Kenyan challenge mid-race before holding off Lagat in a thrilling sprint to the line.

An elated Bekele slapped his chest with an open hand and beamed.

He finished in a slow 13 minutes, 17.09 seconds, with Lagat .24 seconds behind. James Kwalia C’Kurui of Qatar took bronze in 13:17.78. Both the silver and bronze medalists are Kenyan-born.

The first man running for Kenya to finish was 2003 champion Eliud Kipchoge, a fading fifth.

A win for Bekele partly salvaged the championships for Ethiopia, which saw its women’s running team underperform while rival Kenya surged up the standings. Bekele’s gold was Ethiopia’s second, compared with Kenya’s four.

Earlier on the closing day of the competition, Bai Xue shook off Yoshimi Ozaki of Japan in the latter stages of a sun-drenched women’s marathon through the heart of the German capital to clinch China’s first ever major title in the event.

And the world’s most populous country with 1.3 billion people finally had a title to celebrate as Bai waved the red flag with five yellow stars around, with a few Chinese fans dancing wildly under the Brandenburg Gate.

By that time, Jamaica had already done all the celebrating it could. With Usain Bolt’s third gold coming in the 400 relay late Saturday, the Caribbean island nation of 2.8 million won its seventh gold medal.

Jamaica entered Sunday’s medal-packed day in a tie with the United States for gold, but the Americans were expected to run away with the medals table as they are favorites in both 1,600 relay races.

Bolt is already certain to be the runaway leader with three golds, but there are plenty of doubles on the line.

Bahrain’s Kenyan-born Yusuf Saad Kamel also was going for a double in the 800. The 1,500 champion saw favorite Abubaker Kaki of Sudan crash out in the heats and can expect his toughest competition from 2004 Olympic champion Yuriy Borzakovskiy of Russia.

In the relays, both 400 champion LaShawn Merritt and 200 champion Allyson Felix can add a second title if their U.S. 1,600 teams perform as expected.

If the Americans had not been eliminated in the 400 relay heats Saturday, Felix could have challenged for three golds.

Other finals on the last day of the nine-day championships are in the women’s long jump and 1,500, and the men’s javelin.