Dibaba off mark in victorious run
It appeared, at points, that she was going to do it. One year after her astonishing run around (and around and around) the track at the Reggie Lewis Center, Tirunesh Dibaba was running with her own splits late yesterday afternoon at the very same venue. Having passed everyone, including her sister, Ejegayehu, Tirunesh was flying.
And even she, at points, thought that she was going to do it. Not quite. Crossing the finish line in 14:35.46 to win the women's 5000-meter run at the Reebok Boston Indoor Games, Dibaba beat everyone entered in the race, except herself.
''It was a fast-paced race," said Dibaba, through her interpreter, Elias Kebede. ''I liked it. It was on the record, but somehow I didn't make it.
''I think I ran very well and I thought I was on the record pace. There was some kind of misunderstanding. I thought I was in it, but I was not. In my heart, I thought I was on the pace."
That was the pace she established last year, setting the world record in 14:32.93, smashing the mark (14:39.29) set one year prior. It was the pace she hoped to surpass again. Same track, same result, right? But, while she ran less than a second shy of the record splits in the first half of the race, once the pacesetter peeled away, and she left her sister behind, Dibaba started falling off the mark.
''When [I] had two more [laps] to go," said Dibaba, still holding the winner's flower bouquet, ''[I] knew [I] wouldn't make it."
Not this year, as the petite Ethiopian, with her braids done up in a side bun and her fingernails decorated with stars, acknowledged after the race. It's one of the few disappointments she's had since her last trip to the Reggie Lewis Center -- if not setting a world record can be counted as a disappointment. She won gold, twice, at the 2005 World Championships, in the 5,000 and 10,000 meters, and twice more at the 2005 World Cross-Country Championships, in the 4-kilometer and 8-kilometer.
Though, with a crowd dotted with Ethiopian flags and a sister a few meters behind, it seemed as though she was going to try. And, by finishing fewer than three seconds off last year's pace, Dibaba served notice that her record certainly was no aberration. Especially with that world-class training partner close at hand. (The sisters share a house.)
''We train together and we strategize together how we are going [to win]," Ejegayehu said, also through the interpreter. ''We tried our best to go for the world record, and somehow it didn't work out."
It doesn't always. But there is time. Tirunesh is still just 20 years old.
''I can still go for world records," she said. ''My aim is to win the Olympics."
That chance will come, in 2008 in Beijing.
For now, for her competitors, there are less lofty goals to consider. With Dibaba dominating the distance, winning isn't exactly the first option to occur to her fellow runners. That is a more mundane hope, like the seemingly too-much-to-ask request of third-place finisher Sarah Slattery, who clocked in more than a minute behind Tirunesh and nearly 20 seconds behind Ejegayehu: ''I just hope next year she doesn't lap me."
