by Astolfo Cagnacci
OSLO, July 2, 2009 (AFP) - Ethiopia’s triple Olympic champion Tirunesh Dibaba will miss Friday’s Golden League meeting in Oslo after suffering a minor injury, her manager Mark Wetmore has announced.
Dibaba’s absence is a blow for Bislett Games organisers who were billing this second Golden League meet as a showdown between Dibaba and her compatriot Meseret Defar for the world 5,000 metres record.
She (Dibaba) picked up a minor injury in training on Tuesday which I was only made aware of yesterday (Wednesday),'' Wetmore reported. I don’t think it’s serious and Tirunesh will certainly compete in the 10,000m at the World Athletics Championships in Berlin (next month),’’ he said adding that the middle distance star would race somewhere later this month ``but we don’t know where yet’’.
The past two seasons have seen hotly-contested battles between bitter rivals Dibuaba and Defar in Oslo.
Two years ago it was 25-year-old Defar who set a blistering pace in cool conditions, slicing eight seconds off her previous best to set a new world record in 14min 16.63sec.
Last year it was the turn of 24-year-old Dibaba, who pushed the record even further (14min 11.15sec) under a warmer 24 degrees celcius.
Despite Dibaba stealing the show at the Beijing Games, winning both the 5,000m and 10,000m, with Defar claiming just a bronze over 5,000m, it is the latter who leads 12 to 11 in their head to heads.
Warm forecasts for the Norwegian capital on Friday evening could however favour the Olympic champion as well as countryman Kenenisa Bekele, also a double titleholder over the same distances at last year’s Olympics.
Bekele’s thoughts, however, will not be on his world 5,000m record (12:37.35), but a simple victory to put him closer to the one million dollar jackpot awarded to the winner of all six legs of the Golden League series.
If he succeeds, Bekele could share the prize with Russian polevaulter Yelena Isinbayeva, who has a margin on her rivals, and American Sanya Richards, who has dominated on the track at the start of this season.
The middle distance looks set for a battle with Sudanese 800m specialist Abubaker Kaki and Kenyan Augustine Choge lining up for the Dream Mile (1609 m).
Kaki holds the two fastest times over the distance, while Choge won the 1,500m in the opening event in the Golden League series in Berlin, with his 3min 29.47sec the best performance over the distance in three years.
In the javelin, Finland’s Tero Pitkamaki will be hoping to keep his form after winning the curtain-raiser in Berlin, with his leading rivals Norway’s double Olympic champion Andeas Thorkilden and Latvia’s Vadims Vasilevskis.
The sprint events have however been hit by scheduling problems which have ruled out the Americans and triple Olympic champion Usain Bolt. But former world record holder Asafa Powell of Jamaica is set for the date.