MONACO, Sept 11: Olympic women’s 5,000 metres champion Meseret Defar completed a 3,000-5,000 metres double on Saturday with victory in the shorter event to finish the two-day world athletics final richer by $60,000. Defar, who defeated fellow-Ethiopian and world champion Tirunesh Dibaba after a frenzied sprint finish in Friday’s 5,000, led world junior cross country champion Gelete Burika across the line on Saturday.
Russian Olympic and world women’s pole vault champion Yelena Isinbayeva showed the effects of a long season by failing with three attempts to better her own world record of 5.01 metres.
Isinbayeva has collected eight world records this year, including the first clearance at five metres.
A 19th career world record would have earned her an extra $100,000 in the last major meeting of the year.
Another Russian, world long jump champion Tatyana Lebedeva, narrowly failed to win the women’s triple jump after wining a million dollars for finishing first in the six Golden League meetings.
Ukrainian Ivan Heshko emerged from the pack in the finishing straight to win the men’s 1,500 metres ahead of Olympic silver medallist Bernard Lagat.
Saturday’s leading results:
MEN’S:
100 metres: 1. Marc Burns (Trinidad and Tobago) 10.00 seconds; 2. Aziz Zakari (Ghana) 10.01; 3. Dwight Thomas (Jamaica) 10.01.