Category — Ethiopia

Aha, Tirunesh Dibaba Kenene of Ethiopia, is a flag draper (a variation of the Olympic “art” of flag waving). She set a new Olympic record in the women’s 10,000 meter run and bagged herself a gold medal. Congratulations to you, Tirunesh.

Expect more gold medals for Ethiopia in distance running because they tend to dominate the discipline.

Ethiopia Related:
CAA 2008: Melkamu Emerges From Compatriot’s Shadow
CAA 2008: Ethiopians Sweep Men’s 10,000 Meters
Don’t Jog In the Smog

Photo source: beijing2008

After playing bridesmaid to Meseret Defar’s bride in several events, Ethiopia’s Meselech Melkamu finally emerged from the shadows of her more popular compatriot by beating Defar in the 5,000 meter race at the ongoing African Athletics Championships.

From the IAAF: Melkamu took advantage of a slow, tactical race to outgun Defar on the last lap and deny her a successful defence of the title she had won in Bambous, Mauritius, in 2006. It was a first senior international championship victory for the 2004 World junior cross country and 5000m champion.

Read the rest here.

From Addis2008:
Outstanding front-running by Gebregziabher Gebremariam led Ethiopian compatriots Ibrahim Jeylan and Eshetu Wondimu to a clean sweep of the medals in the opening day of the men’s 10000m at the 16th CAA African Athletics Championships.

The 25-year old, who finished sixth in the world championships 10000m in Osaka last year, led for more than half of the twenty-five lap contest to take victory in 28:17.11 with world junior champion Ibrahim Jeylan (28:30.66) continuing his impressive record on Ethiopian soil to take silver ahead of national champion Eshetu Wondimu (28:56.36).

It was a dramatic improvement on the 25-year old’s All-African Games bronze medal from last year and a dramatic comeback from his disastrous outing at the 36th IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Edinburgh a month ago where he finished 17th.

Read the rest here.

NOTE: Photo, courtesy of tigrai.org, is from the 2005 Ethiopian championships not the CAA Games.

Mongolia’s Serod Batochir bagged the marathon gold medal in the Good Luck Beijing 2008 preparatory games for the main show in August. Will Serod repeat as a gold medalist in the Olympic Games? Unlikely.

His run which clocked two hours, 30 minutes and 42 seconds is just too far away from those recorded by Athens 2004 medalists (where the bronze medalist clocked 2:12:11). Also, the current marathon world record is 2:04:26 by Ethiopia’s Haile Gebrselassie. By the way, as we reported earlier, Haile has decided to not compete in the marathon because of health concerns.

Photo credit: Associated Press.

Are people complaining about Beijing’s pollution just a bunch of wimps? Or do they have a valid concern?

Because I live in a polluted city, I initially labeled them as wimpy whiners. So I was like, “Silly people. I eat pollution for breakfast. If you want to live in a pollution free world then let’s all walk/run/bike to work. Besides, how convenient for Westerners to be complaining about Beijing’s pollution when they benefit from it through cheaper goods. Silly, silly, nose up in the air , hypocritical, energy-guzzling people.”

But then I came across this report which states that distance runner Haile Gebrselassie has decided to not compete in the marathon because of Beijing’s pollution. So I went, “Aha. If an athlete would rather forgo a sure gold medal because of health concerns maybe those whiners have a valid point after all. Maybe it’s unfair to label them as “whiners”".

What do you think? Does Beijing need to clean up its air? Or is the pollution problem being unfairly blown out of proportion?