Of the record 16-strong contingent in attendance one quarter still had a chance of denying Liz McColgan the right to claim that she is the only Scot to have won a World Championship medal, half of those members of the 1991 10,000 metres champion’s Dundee Hawkhill Harriers and one of those the daughter she gave birth to just nine months before that trip to Tokyo.
Even for one blessed with the genes of one of the most cussed competitors any country has ever produced it was too much to ask, Eilish McColgan finishing in a respectable 10th place in the 5000 metres, but a long way behind the race for the gold medal between Kenya’s Helen Obiree, whose pace on the final lap saw her race away from Almaz Ayana, the woman over whose performance McColgan senior had raised questions when she ran away from the field in the 10,000 metres the previous weekend.
“It was totally different to what I expected it to be,” McColgan admitted, after coming within five hundredths of a second of the personal best 15:00.38 she had set in the semi-final.
“I thought it would be fast from the start and we’d all be hanging on, but we were practically walking those first couple of laps. It’s a shock to the system when you go from walking then in to a fast pace, and I think that’s definitely something I need to get used to doing.”
Four places ahead of her clubmate Laura Muir seemed less surprised by how things had unfolded, but similarly took solace from having made progress in what is a new event for her.
“It was always going to be Obiri and Ayana. When they went I knew not to panic too much. I think I raced it really well, and I’m happy with how it went as a final. It’s an outdoor personal best,” she said after finishing in 14:52.07. “I ran two seconds faster indoors but that was off metronomic pacing, whereas that race was so slow off the start. If it hadn’t have been I definitely would have ran a personal best.”
The 800 metres went pretty much to form with South Africa’s Caster Semenya getting a warm reception from the crowd at the end of an event that has packed in more than 700,000 spectators. Lynsey Sharp tried hard to get involved, but even before she had to win her case for reinstatement to the final after initially being disqualified for barging during the semi-final, she had only just squeezed into the last available fastest loser slot and duly finished at the back of the field with a time of 1:58.98. Hopes had been higher of Chris O’Hare in the 1500 metres, but after challenging in the early stages he, too, found the pace too much for him, as he finished last in 3:38.28 more than four seconds behind Kenyan winner Elijah Manangoi, who edged out compatriot Timothy Cheruiyot.
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