She can't complain about 10th place
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BEIJING - Shalane Flanagan finished the women's 5,000 yesterday and looked forward to a celebratory beer with friends and family upon leaving the National Stadium.
Although her 10th-place finish in a tactically bizarre race was not a triumphant ending to her Olympic experience, Flanagan recognized the strides she made in Beijing. Her bronze in the 10,000 placed her among the greatest female American distance runners.
"I'm bummed out right now," said Flanagan after clocking 15 minutes 50.80 seconds. "But I'm going to try to get over it real quick because the highlight was a couple nights ago. I'm going to try to remember that was really exciting. I need to cherish that moment.
"I'm sure my coach will have a list of things of what I could have done. But he knows that I really did try to cover everything. I'm not a superwoman. I can only do so much. I can't expect to have lifetime performances every night. I had a lifetime performance the other night."
When gold medalist Tirunesh Dibaba of Ethiopia crossed the line in 15:41.40, it was the slowest women's Olympic 5,000 since the event was introduced in 1996. It was, as Flanagan described the race, "slow as molasses." During some middle laps, the pace dropped to 80 seconds per lap. Dibaba set the 5,000 world record in June at the Bislett Games in Oslo with a time of 14:11.15.
Dibaba used her renowned kick on the last lap, beating out two other Ethiopians. Defending Olympic champion and reigning world champion Meseret Defar finished with the bronze. Ethiopian-born Elvan Abeylegesse claimed silver for Turkey.
"[Dibaba] has an innate ability," said Flanagan. "She knows her body really well. She knows how to read people. She's a sprinter. She's beautiful to watch. She is really a sprinter and something I aspire to, for that kind of form. She just has an innate ability to read everything on the track."
After recovering from food poisoning to race the 10,000, Flanagan struggled with fatigue in the 5,000.
"A lot of high school girls can run that time, but they can't close the way these women did tonight," said Flanagan. "Times go out the door. I was lucky to get in a good fast 10K the other night. I cherish and love honest races. I'm not good enough to go out there and lead the whole race and expect to do really well, especially when I have tired legs.
"With my legs tired, it was hard to change gears, just drop it like that. I tried to ease into every move, instead of dropping a hammer. I knew that lactic acid was going to kick in if I went too hard. When they made a move with three laps to go, I couldn't get there fast enough. I think it cost me two or three spots."
When Flanagan returns to the US, there will be some more celebrating in North Carolina and back home in Marblehead. She will also do some road racing, including the
"The marathon is always in the back of my mind," said Flanagan. "Once I tried the 10k, it felt really natural. To me, the 5k is a very painful event. The 10k just came really natural. I can see myself running a marathon maybe in the next four years, only because I would want to test the waters for the next Olympics and consider the fact that that may be my event and why not test it out and see if that's what I should be doing in London in 2012.
"Everything is day to day and year to year. I think about it, but my father always warns me that the day I go to the marathon is a transition into a whole other world and being a different athlete. He's just worried it would shorten my career if I went to the marathon too soon."
