BUDAPEST: Amane Beriso Shankule beat defending champion and compat­riot Gotytom Gebre­­s­lase to give Ethio­pia their third women’s marathon title in the past five editions of the World Athletics Champi­onships on Saturday.

The runners had to brave scorching and humid conditions in Buda­pest with temperatures hitting 29 degrees Celsius (84 degrees Fahrenheit) by the time the race finished.

However, conditions became even more challenging for the decathletes, female shot putters and spectators in the stadium.

Some revelled in it but others like decathlon overnight leader Leo Neugebauer of Germany wilted at the start of day two, the 23-year-old slipping to fourth after the first two events of the day.

Canada’s world silver medallist Pierce LePage topped the standings going into the morning’s final event, the pole vault.

Whoever prevails will be a new world champion as France’s titleholder Kevin Mayer withdrew with an injury on Friday.

Shankule, whose victory at last year’s Valencia marathon put her third on the world all-time list, timed 2hr 24min 23sec to win gold on the streets of the Hungarian capital.

Defending champion Gebreslase claimed silver, 11sec behind, with Morocco’s Fatima Ezzahra Gardadi taking bronze in 2:25.17 after overhauling Ethiopia’s Yalemzerf Yehualaw.

“We knew if we worked together we could get a better result, and we worked well as a team today,” said Beriso.

“We got the lead group down to six and then we pushed away with four of us. That was our plan because their was such a strong field. After we got rid of the rest, then it was a battle with my tough team-mates.

“We wanted to win all three medals, of course, but that didn’t go to plan in the end. We took gold and silver and we are happy with that. It’s great to keep the title in Ethiopia’s hands. We are a group of top athletes working individually most of the time but before the championships we came together with a women’s team coach to prepare for the race.”

LePage was on track for his first world gold medal in the decathlon, leading after eight events.

The 27-year-old silver medallist at last year’s worlds has 7,477 points with just the javelin and 1,500 metres remaining.

Leo Neugebauer of Germany is second on 7,282 points and Olympic champion Damian Warner, who is making a bid for a first world title after taking the silver in 2015 and bronze in both 2013 and 2019, is third with 7,260.

LePage began the day in second place behind Neugebauer before moving into the lead with a personal best time of 13.77 seconds in the 110 metre hurdles. He then built on his lead with second-best results in both the discus (50.98 metres) and pole vault (season’s best 5.20).

The 22-year-old Neugebauer struggled in the hurdles but climbed back to second after clearing 5.10m in the pole vault.

Warner’s 4.90m in the pole vault was a personal best and kept him in the medal mix. His world championships last year ended abruptly when he pulled up in the 400m with a hamstring injury.

LYLES KING OF SPRINTS

In Friday’s evening session, there was double world sprint joy for Noah Lyles while the second fastest women’s 200m run in history saw Shericka Jackson dash Sha’Carri Richardson’s hopes of also achieving the 100/200m sweep.

Lyles became the fifth man to do the double — and the first since Usain Bolt in 2015 — as he claimed his fourth individual world title.

“In my documentary I talked about wanting it to be done, being different from anybody else, and winning double golds was one of the things on my list,” said the 26-year-old, who is the fourth American to do the double. “I wanted to show I am different. Today I came out and showed it.”

In the women’s event, Jackson produced a run for the ages as the 29-year-old Jamaican rebounded from the disappointment of being beaten to silver by Richardson in the 100m to time 21.41sec, breaking her own championship record set last year.

Her time was just seven hundredths of a second slower than the world record of 21.34sec set by Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988.

Lyles was not the only athlete to win a fourth individual title on the night, although Yulia Rojas left it to her last jump in the women’s triple jump.

Great champions never know when they are beaten but the Venezuelan pushed it to the limits.

The 27-year-old only scraped into the final eight by the skin of her teeth and then produced two no-jumps.

However, she dug deep with her last attempt for a gold medal-winning jump of 15.06m, snatching victory from Ukraine’s Maryna Bekh-Romanchuk who had led from the first round with a mark of 15.00m.

Japan’s Haruka Kitagu­chi of Japan took a leaf out of Rojas’s book as she grabbed the javelin title with her last throw. The 25-year-old’s 66.73m denied Colombia’s Flor Denis Ruiz Hurtado, who threw 65.47m in the first round.

Published in Dawn, August 27th, 2023