Britain’s Mo Farah added the world distance double to the one he achieved at the London Olympics when he held off the Ethiopian and Kenyan challenge in belligerent style to win the 5,000 metres yesterday.
He needed all of his famed final lap speed to come home in 13:26.98, ahead of Ethiopia’s Hagos Gebrhiwet (13:27.26) and Kenyan Isiah Kiplangat Koech (13:27.26), six days after winning the 10,000 metres in Moscow.
Farah, defending his title from Daegu, became the only man apart from the peerless Kenenisa Bekele to hold the Olympic and world championship distance double simultaneously.
“I never thought in my career I would achieve something like this. This was very tough – it was all left to the last two laps. I had a lot of pressure but at the same time I enjoy it,” he said.
“This is something I work so hard for. I was thinking about my kids, how long I spend away from them. It’s very difficult because they’re growing so fast and I haven’t been around for the last four or five months.
“It was hard this year, harder than last year.”
In a final of muddling and erratic pace, the trio of Ethiopians and Kenyans did their best to disrupt the Briton with team tactics but Farah, towards the back early on, went to the front with three laps to go.
With his principal rivals for gold, all with fresher legs after not running in the 10,000, queueing up to pass at the bell, Farah refused to yield.
Koech appeared the main danger around the final bend but did not have the legs to get past as Farah held him at bay all the way to the line and Gebrhiwet's late burst snatched silver by one thousandth of a second.
Sprint double
Jamaica's Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce completed a brilliant world championship sprint double yesterday as she added the 200 metres gold to the 100m title but her path to glory was eased by an injury to Olympic champion Allyson Felix.
Fraser-Pryce, twice Olympic 100 metres champion, ran a brilliant bend and was always in command, coming home in 22.17 seconds to become the first woman since Katrin Krabbe in 1991 to win the world sprint double. American Kelly White did win both races in 2003 but was retrospectively disqualified for doping.
Ivory Coast’s Murielle Ahoure, who became the first African woman to finish on the podium in a sprint at the world championships when second in the 100m, got a second silver but only just.
She and Nigeria’s Blessing Okagbare were both timed at 22.32 but Ahoure took it by sixth thousandths of a second, leaving Okagbare to add bronze to the silver she won in the long jump.
Felix, who had been hoping to become the first athlete to win nine world golds, pulled up with a hamstring injury halfway round the opening bend. She fell to the floor and was eventually carried from the track by her brother Wes.
Fraser-Pryce, who ran in shocking pink spikes matching her flowing hair extensions, won the 100 metres gold medal at last year’s Olympics and took silver in the 200 behind Felix.
