Female marathon runners were rushed for medical attention, faces contorted in pain, while other competitors hobbled off the track in the inaugural road race of Doha’s World Athletics Championships in the early hours of yesterday.
Humidity of more than 73 percent and temperatures of almost 33°C dogged the race, specially started at midnight to avoid peak heat, as it meandered along a course on Doha’s Al Corniche Street.
“You see somebody down on the course and it’s just, extremely grounding and scary,” said Canada’s Lyndsay Tessier, 41, who finished ninth. “That could be you in the next kilometer, the next 500 meters.”
Photo: EPA-EFE
“It was just really scary and intimidating and daunting. So that was enough to hold me back,” Tessier said.
About two dozen runners in the 68-strong marathon field fell by the wayside as the sweltering conditions took their toll, in a sport which rarely sees drop-outs at this level.
Kenya’s Ruth Chepngetich won gold when she took the tape after 2 hours, 32 minutes, 43 seconds, crediting “training in a hot area” of her home country for helping her to tame the elements.
Tessier’s fellow competitors filed behind her as she spoke to the media, some held up by their coaches and others too exhausted to stop and speak.
“I’m just really grateful to have finished standing up,” Tessier said.
Organizers told race participants that the event’s timing could be changed if conditions proved prohibitive, but ultimately pressed ahead with the original plan.
Almost all of the runners were saturated with sweat by the halfway point and most ran with bottles, while some video cameras being used to film the race malfunctioned because of the conditions.
A mild breeze that lapped the corniche during the opening ceremony and fireworks display had dwindled by the end of the race leaving the runners to bear the brunt of the surging humidity.
Marathon runners and walkers do not have the luxury of competing at the championships’ principal venue, the air-conditioned Khalifa Stadium, where the climate is maintained at 23°C to 25°C, although Braima Suncar Dabo stopped running in the men’s 5,000m there on Friday to help a struggling competitor finish.
Dabo held up an exhausted Jonathan Busby and together they staggered around the last turn and over the finish line to great applause, even though the other runners had crossed five minutes earlier.
Busby, from Aruba, collapsed onto the track and was placed in a wheelchair by medical staff.
“Any athlete in that situation would do the same thing,” Guinea-Bissau’s Dabo said through a translator. “It was something normal to do, to help someone from another country, because [Busby] was representing his country as well.”
Officially, Busby was disqualified, but the crowd roared for him and Dabo as they crossed the line.
TO THE TOP: After securing the international title on Saturday, Team Taiwan were to face Las Vegas to potentially win their 18th Little League World Series championship A team from Taipei’s Dong Yuan Elementary School won the Little League Baseball World Series’ international title on Saturday by defeating Aruba 1-0 in the annual baseball tournament held in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. The Taiwan team, competing under the name Chinese Taipei, were after press time last night to face a team from Las Vegas, Nevada, which beat a team from Fairfield, Connecticut, in the US championship 8-2. Taiwan are seeking to win their first Little League Baseball World Series title since 1996. “Really haven’t taken a moment to data dump right now on Taiwan,” Nevada manager T.J. Fescher said. “They’re a
‘CATASTROPHE’: Despite losing several key forwards in the summer transfer window, Bayern were up 3-0 in the first half before Harry Kane scored a hat-trick in the second Harry Kane hit a hat-trick, Michael Olise a double and newcomer Luis Diaz also scored as Bayern Munich made a “statement” against RB Leipzig 6-0 at home in the Bundesliga season opener on Friday. Bayern’s big-money arrivals, all brought in from the Premier League across the past three seasons, were dominant as the Bavarians begun their title defense in style. Olise scored twice in the first half, either side of a Diaz strike. Not to be outdone, Kane scored three goals in the second half — with two assists coming from Diaz, to bring Bayern’s total to 6-0. Kane told the Bundesliga
Kevin de Bruyne is to lead SSC Napoli’s Serie A title defense today when he makes his full debut at promoted US Sassuolo, but the champions head into the new season rocked by a long-term injury to star striker Romelu Lukaku. De Bruyne was, alongside aging icon Luka Modric, the big new name to arrive in Italy this summer and fans were hoping his linkup with Belgium teammate Lukaku would push Napoli to success both at home and in their return to the UEFA Champions League. The 34-year-old has suffered from hamstring injuries which caused him to miss significant chunks of the
Marc Marquez continued his winning streak as he cruised to victory in the Hungarian GP sprint by two seconds on Saturday night to pad his championship lead. It was a seventh straight Sprint victory for the Spaniard, who has also won the last six longer Sunday grand prix races on his factory Ducati. Fabio Di Giannantonio, an Italian with the VR46 Ducati satellite team was a distant second at Balaton Park, followed by his team-mate and compatriot Franco Morbidelli third. Marquez, a six-time world champion, started the race from pole position. “I felt someone really close on the first corner, from there I
RSS