Mo Farah has won the 10,000m gold medal at the 2015 World Championships in Beijing. The men’s marathon unfolded in dramatic fashion with a surprise win by an Eritrean teenager.
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Defending champion Bolt, who celebrated his 29th birthday on Friday, will be hoping to rise to the occasion when it matters in the final as he eyes yet another title at the expense of Gatlin. Salazar has strenuously denied all the accusations against him and Farah, who was not accused of any wrongdoing, has vowed to stick by his coach unless any allegations are proven.
Rupp wasn’t able to stay with the the three medalists in the final lap, and finished fifth behind Karoki in 27:08.91, a time which would have won the world title on ten previous occasions.
The 32-year-old British double reigning Olympic champion pulled out of the IAAF Diamond League meeting in Birmingham in June and flew back to his training base in Oregon, claiming he was “emotionally exhausted” by the controversy. In the preliminary rounds of the men’s 100 meters, he cruised to 9.96 seconds to advance comfortably to Sunday’s 100-meter semifinals. “I know, I can win the competition”.
Farah said: “I’m more experienced than anything else”.
Gatlin took the best time of the day with a time of 9.83 seconds.
“I think this year my opponents might try something different”, he says when probed about how he feels the 10,000m final may pan out.
Laura Weightman, the silver medallist at last summer’s Commonwealth Games, also did enough to progress, coming home sixth in her heat in 4:06.13 and fortunately appearing to emerge relatively unscathed from a heavy fall just after crossing the line. “We came here to compete and yes, I believe we can upset Farah”. American Mike Rodgers took second for an auto-qualifier in 9.97.
Elsewhere, there were gold medals for Eritrea’s Ghirmay Ghebreslassie in the marathon and Germany’s Christina Schwanitz in the shot put.
“It’s not easy to run in this heat for 27 minutes”, he added.
Little-known competitors from Italy, Lesotho and Mongolia each led the pack at one point before fading behind.
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The fancied Kenyans met disaster, with Mark Korir their best in 22nd place as world record holder Dennis Kimetto and Wilson Kipsang Kirotich did not finish.
