Top 10 African Athletes in 2015 (Part 2)

                                                               3) Almaz Ayana:

She might have beaten Genzebe Dibaba to the 5000m African title in 2014, but we all really took notice of her this year.

At the Shanghai Diamond League, Ayana ran the quickest time in the year to win the 5000m in 14:14.32. In fact that time is the third fastest ever in the all-time list, missing out marginally from Tirunesh Dibaba’s World Record of 14:11.15.

With Tirunesh missing out this year, there were talks of her younger sister, Genzebe having an unchallenged dominance; however it was Ayana who stole the show in the longer distance race.

She succeeded in fostering a competitive 5000m race against Dibaba, reminiscent of the duels between Tirunesh Dibaba and Meseret Defar.

Prior to the 5000m final in at the 2015 World Championships in Beijing, all the attention and cameras panned on Genzebe as the favourite to win and make it a double after her 1500m triumph, but Ayana had other ideas. From the fourth lap that Ayana zoomed into pole position, there was no catching her as she ran a jaw-dropping race to win the world title in a Championship Record (CR) of 14:26.83, erasing Tirunesh’s 14:38.59.

Genzebe was on her tail all through, but when they entered the final three laps, she couldn’t match the grit of Ayana who opened up an unassailable lead all the way to the finish line. The margin was so much that Dibaba was psychologically affected by the gap, forgetting that Senbere Teferi was closing in; she eventually had to concede second place to settle for Bronze.

If the World Championships victory wasn’t convincing enough, Ayana showed weeks later that what she did in Beijing was no fluke as she replicated another win over Dibaba. This time in the final DL in Zurich where she did a Meeting Record (MR) in the 3000m, running a time of 8:22.36 to beat Dibaba once more just weeks after her triumph in China.

Dibaba seemed untouchable this year, but for Ayana to become the first person to beat her twice in a space of two weeks is not a cakewalk.