ATHLETICS: Ask any athlete if they'd take an Olympic gold over a World Championship gold and they'd say yes, but for Saif Saaeed Shaheen the gold medal in last night's 3,000 metres steeplechase was always going to mean as much. The former Kenyan steeplechase artist known as Stephen Cherono won the title for Qatar - as he did in Paris two years ago - and confirmed himself the undisputed champion of the world.
Shaheen missed out on the Athens Olympics last year because the Kenyan federation wouldn't clear him to run. His response was to lower the world record to 7:53.63 a week after the Games, and last night he ran away from Kenya's Olympic champion Ezekiel Kemboi to take the win in 8:13.31. You can't argue with that.
For a long while the field splashed about in a tactical battle, but once Shaheen hit the front with two laps remaining he started accelerating into the hurdles with incredible ferocity.
Kemboi hung on bravely but never got in front, and took second in 8:14.95. Another Kenyan, Brimin Kipruto, edged out Brahim Boulami of Morocco on the line for the bronze, but Boulami got little sympathy from the spectators that knew he'd just returned from a two-year ban.
"I am very proud of defending my world title," said the 22-year-old Shaheen, who raised a Qatar flag at the finish to add insult to injury. "The Kenyans did not bother me at all. I knew they were good, but after five laps I was sure that I was home safe - they could not stop me."
That race gave hope to the European cause when Dutch athlete Simon Vroemen took fifth in 8:16.76, and the Spaniard Antonio Jimenez also got home ahead of the third Kenyan, Paul Koech.
Shaheen wasn't the only defending champion putting a title on the line last night. Maria Mutola, the three-time winner of the 800 metres, reckoned she had a shot at number four. At 32 the Mozambique athlete knows her best years are behind her, but she wasn't surrendering without a fight - and set the pace at the front of the field for three-quarters of the race.
That merely set up the fast-finishing Cuban Zulia Calatayud for the most graceful of victories, her well-timed kick bringing her home in 1:58.82. The 25-year-old finished last in Athens after getting her tactics all wrong, but here she eased in front down the home stretch - her relaxed, flowing stride reminiscent of the first great Cuban 800-metre runner, Alberto Juantorena (who was watching from the stands).
Mutola's brave tactics back-fired when she was first passed by the Russian Tatyana Andrianova and then by the diminutive but sprightly Moroccan Hasna Benhassi - who stormed through for the silver in 1:59.60 just like she did in Athens.
It meant Mutola missed out on a medal by 11-hundredths of a second. For Calatayud though, everything had gone to plan: "I was waiting for the others to start my kick before I went with mine. Once I got myself into a good position I knew I was going to run well."
The reigning 400-metre hurdles champion, Felix Sanchez of the Dominican Republic, was another trying to retain a title - but his chances were gone before he reached the second hurdle. The Olympic champion, who had been troubled by injury all summer, collapsed to the track clutching his right hamstring.
It's unlikely Sanchez would have won even at his best as the 22-year-old American Bershawn Jackson was a class apart, taking the gold medal in a personal best of 47.30 seconds.
His team-mate James Carter was second in 47.43, Japan's Dai Tamesue holding on for third.
Bershawn is clearly a star of the future. He was asked why he'd been given the nickname Batman.
"Why?" he said. "Because I fly past people when I run."
