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Canada’s Brianne Theisen-Eaton won her third silver medal in the heptathlon event, one indoors (pentathlon) in the 2014 Sopot, Poland world indoors and two outdoors in the 2013 Moscow worlds and today at the 2015 Beijing world championships.
She got off to a good start, however, stumbled a little while having a slightly inconsistent heptathlon for her standard. She was in third place leading into the final event Sunday, the 800-metre run. Theisen-Eaton tried to bury Briton Jessica Ennis-Hill by front-running hard from the gun, however, Ennis-Hill eventually caught her within the final stretch to win gold. Ennis-Hill is the 2012 London Olympic gold medallist.
Ennis-Hill finished the race in 2:10.13 to Theisen-Eaton’s 2:11.52, while Latvia’s Laura Ikauniece-Admidina finished third in 2:13.79. The fastest of the three heats of the Heptathlon’s 800-metre race was Germany’s Claudia Rath who won the first heat in the time of 2:09.66.
Ennis-Hill finished with 6669 points overall while Theisen-Eaton earned 6554, while Ikauniece-Admidina earned 6516, setting a national record.
Theisen-Eaton is the Canadian record holder in the indoor event. Ennis-Hill owns five gold medals in major global championships including the European, world indoor and outdoor track and field championships and Olympic Games.
100-metre final
In the 100-metre sprint final Jamaican Usain Bolt won in the time of 9.79, just .01 of a second faster than American Justin Gatlin. Third place went to two athletes, Canada’s Andre De Grasse who ran a new personal best time of 9.92 seconds. De Grasse tied with American Trayvell Bromell.
The four athletes beat some big names in the 100-metre event including Americans Tyson Gay (10.00) and Mike Rodgers (9.94) and Jamaican Asafa Powell (10.00).
Controversy surrounding Gatlin pitted the antagonist against the protagonist Bolt and although Bolt is a far superior runner owning the world record of 9.58, Gatlin has been on a winning streak with at least 28-consecutive victories; deep into his thirties and post two different drugs bans. The press lately has suggested that if Gatlin won the race, it would be a black eye on the sport. Meanwhile Gatlin said that he erred and “let the race get away from him”.
With the difference being just .01 of a second, perhaps that performance is still a black eye on the sport.
The rest of the day’s stories can be read here.
Day 3 features the women’s 10,000m final including superstar distance runner Tirunesh Dibaba of Ethiopia as well as Kenyans Vivien Cheruiyot and Sally Kipyego, American Shalane Flanagan as well as Canadians Lanni Marchant and Natasha Wodak are in the race. A 10,000m preview is available here.
The 3,000m steeplechase will be an exciting final on day 3 with American Even Jager competing against Canadian record holder Matt Hughes and three Kenyans: Conseslus Kipruto (8:01.16), Jairus Kipchoge (7:58.41) and Ezekiel Kemboi (7:55.56).
There will also be the women’s 100-metre final, men’s pole vault final and women’s triple jump final as well as several qualification races and heats.
