What a way to start the Rio Olympics; the women's 10,000 meters ran the fastest race in history at that distance and Ethiopian Almaz Ayana shattered the world record held by China's Junxia Wang for 23 years. In today's race, four of the five best times in history were achieved; before today only six women had broken 30 minutes in the 10,000 meters and today four women went under that mark.
Ayana was the favorite for this 10,000, as she arrived with the best time of the year (30:07), but no one expected such an extraordinary performance, especially considering it was only the second time Ayana had run the 10,000 meters (the first was in Ethiopia's qualifying round a few months ago). Today Ayana lapped the rest of the competitors as if she were running against beginners and her demeanor was so comfortable that it seemed like she wasn't even trying.
The typical Olympic 10,000-meter race maintains a large pack until halfway through the competition, then the group shrinks to 10-15 athletes and everything comes down to the final lap. But this race deviated from expectations from the start, when Kenyan Alice Aprot set a strong pace that stretched the pack from the first kilometer. Already at the 2k mark there was a group of 7 runners in single file and a gap of more than 100 meters separating them from the rest of the pack, which never had a chance at anything.
Ayana, 24 years old, decided to take over the race just before the five-kilometer mark and left Aprot behind with ease. Only Kenyan Vivian Cheruiyot tried until the end to catch up to Ayana but the Ethiopian was not willing to give up first place for anything. By the seven-kilometer mark it was clear that Ayana would be very close to the world record and for the final kilometer it was just a matter of knowing by how much she would break it. Her final time of 29:17.45 shattered the previous record by more than 14 seconds. Next Tuesday, August 16, she will run as the heavy favorite in the first heat of the 5,000 meters, an event in which she ran one second off the world record a month ago.
Cheruiyot, who never stopped fighting, finished second less than a second off the old world record. Her time of 29:32.53 is the third best in history and the 29:42.56 achieved by Tirunesh Dibaba is the fourth best time of all time and the personal best for the Olympic champion of Beijing 2008 and London 2012.
All 11 top finishers in this 10,000 meters improved their personal best, that's how good this pack was and that's how strong the race was run from the start.
