Lidia Chojecka wins two gold medals in Birmingham. © www.photorun.net
Poland’s Lidia Chojecka achieved a double victory at the European Indoor Championships in Birmingham, England. One day after her comfortable 1500m victory in 4:05.13, she won the 3,000m race. With a time of 8:43.25, she defended the title she had won two years ago in Madrid. With a long final sprint the 30-year-old left her rivals without a chance. Marta Dominguez (Spain/8:44.40) finished second, while Italian Silvia Weissteiner produced a national record of 8:44.81 and surprisingly took the bronze medal. Sabrina Mockenhaupt (Germany) finished fourth with a personal best of 8:45.77.
While Weissteiner produced a nice surprise for Italy, there was another surprise in this race: Jo Pavey (Great Britain) finished only sixth in 8:54.94 and didn’t get a medal. She led the race until there were two laps to go. To avoid possible pushing and to make the pace faster, Pavey had taken the lead shortly after the start. She reached 1000m in 2:55.26 and 2,000 m in 5:51.58. But her pace was not fast enough to get rid of her rivals. Maybe Pavey would have had a better chance if she would have run even faster, which she is well capable of. This season she clearly is the fastest European with a personal best of 8:31.50, which is also a Commonwealth record. But as in the European Championships in Gothenburg in 2006, the Briton once again missed a medal.
“I have to thank Jo because she was doing just the right pace for me,” said Chojecka, who benefited from Pavey’s tactics and took the lead with 400 meters to go.
Italian Caliandro Wins 3,000m Title, Bad Luck for Farah
An underdog took the men’s 3,000m final at the European Indoors. Twenty-year-old Italian Cosimo Caliandro benefited from the tactics of the race, which was run at a leisurely pace on the 200m track for much of the time. The former middle distance runner won in 8:02.44 ahead of French steeplechaser Bob Tahri (8:02.85) and Jesus Espana (8:02.91). The Spaniard Espana took the lead early and kept it for almost the whole race. At the beginning of the final bend Caliandro, who was the 1,500m European junior champion in 2001, took the lead.
Defending champion Alistair Cragg (Ireland) was not as strong as expected and had to be content with sixth place in 8:03.70. There was bad luck for Britain’s European Cross Country Champion Mo Farah. In the first round on Friday he was unintentionally stepped on and fell badly. Totally irritated at first, Farah began running in the wrong direction. He lost even more ground and was clearly behind the field. Nevertheless he managed to qualify, but in the final he had not had enough energy left in the end. Farah finished fifth, clocking 8:03.50.
