HARARE, ZIMBABWE — The main opposition party and independent observers said today that President Robert Mugabe was suffering a resounding defeat as election results were tallied, but no official returns were released and capital was rife with speculation that they were being rigged.
Tension was high in the capital, Harare, with police deployed on most corners as the delay in announcing results from Saturday’s balloting wore on. Usually, the first official results are released within hours of the polls’ closing.
There were unconfirmed reports that key ministers and Mugabe loyalists lost their seats in parliament.
In a briefing to diplomats, independent election observers said that with 66% of the vote counted, the leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, Morgan Tsvangirai, had 55% of the vote. Mugabe, 84, had 36% and ruling party defector Simba Makoni had 9%, it said.
Tsvangirai’s party said that with 12% of the polling stations reporting, he was winning 67%.
The estimate was based on figures posted at individual polling stations after election officials had signed off on them, the first time such counts have been posted under recent reforms to election law.
“The wave of change was too strong,” said one shocked official of the ruling ZANU-PF, who lost his seat. The official spoke on condition of anonymity.
He said conditions were extremely tense, with speculation rife in the ruling party that the military might step in to back Mugabe and block the opposition from taking power.
The MDC defied government warnings that any early claim of victory would be considered an attempted coup.
“We’ve won this election,” said an exhausted Tendai Biti, MDC secretary-general, who had been up all night as MDC representatives sent in their results.
“The results coming in show that in our traditional strongholds we are massacring them. In Mugabe’s traditional strongholds they are doing very badly. There is no way Mugabe can claim victory unless it is through fraud. He has lost this election,” Biti said. “We must savor these scenes, as for the rest of our lives we’ll say we were there.”
A chirpy state television bulletin Sunday night announced that Zimbabwe Election Commission officials were “verifying” results before broadcasting interviews across the country on how smooth and peaceful the elections had been.
It was equally quiet at the ZEC “command center,” where results are normally posted. One independent observer who visited the center said there were just a few people sitting around reading the paper.
Noel Kututwa, chairman of the Zimbabwe Election Support Network, an independent monitoring group, said the delay in results created tension and speculation, and called on the ZEC to release the results.
“The issue of the delay of the announcement of the results raises tension which is why we are saying the ZEC should release these results as quickly as possible,” he said. “Clearly the delay is fueling speculation that something might be going on.”
Edinburgh, Scotland – The heat of Mombasa is now but a memory, a nightmare of course, in the history of Ethiopian distance running.
In cold, occasionally rainy and blustery conditions in Edinburgh’s Holyrood Park at this afternoon’s 36th IAAF World Cross Country Championships it was not just a climatic differences between the previous and current venues of these championships which were noticeable but competitive ones too.
In Kenya last year the women’s senior team title had been the only success for the green vested runners from the Ethiopian highlands otherwise they had been routed by their Kenyan hosts, Eritrea’s Zersenay Tadese and the Netherlands’ Lornah Kiplagat.
Had it just been the heat of the Indian Ocean coastal city which had defied Kenenisa Bekele, Tirunesh Dibaba and their compatriots?
Whatever the reason Ethiopian flags were enthusiastically unfurled over the course in Holyrood Park today as a large expat community among an estimated overall crowd of over 20,000 spectators, celebrated their country’s first ever sweep of the four indivdual race titles in the slippery muddy conditions of the heavily rain and wind swept grass circuit.
The last time such a feat had been achieved was 1994 when Kenya’s William Sigei (Men), Hellen Chepngeno (Women), Philip Mosima (Jnr men) and Sally Barsosio (Jnr Women) occupied all the top steps of the World Cross Country podium.
Ethiopia’s Kenenisa Bekele, Tirunesh Dibaba, Ibrahim Jeilan and Genzebe Dibaba will now be lauded in Addis Ababa on their return home.
Kenya will be relieved to have pulled together team victories ahead of their foes in the senior and junior men’s race but this was redemption day time for Ethiopia’s Mombasa defeated who surprise, surprise, secured the other two team titles.
One could almost describe the day as ‘normal service resumed’ had the Ethiopian performance not in itself been unique in the annals of their all ready illustrious history at the World Cross Country Championships.
———————- No ‘sole’ can stop Bekele
By David Powell for the IAAF
Edinburgh, Scotland – In a remarkable triumph over adversity and the spirited endeavours of defending champion Zersenay Tadese, Kenenisa Bekele cleared a series of obstacles to win a record sixth Senior Men’s classic distance title – and US$30,000 – at the 36th IAAF World Cross Country Championships, at Holyrood Park, today.
Bekele overcame, in turn, a missed flight, overnight stomach troubles, a dislodged shoe early in the 12km race, and Tadese’s determined mid-race surges, to regain the crown he had won in five successive years from 2002 to 2006. Today’s victory takes his record number of individual World Cross Country titles to 12 (6 Long Course, 5 five Short Course, 1 Junior).
After increasing his total number of World Cross Country gold medals to 16 (including 4 team golds) and his record total count to 27 (16 gold, 9 silver, 2 bronze), Bekele acknowledged that his six classic victories might be the statistic that stands above all the others. Until today, the 25-year-old Bekele had shared a record five classic distance triumphs with Kenyans John Ngugi and Paul Tergat.
Having failed to finish in Mombasa last year, suffering stomach problems in the heat and humidity, Bekele fought back from the troubles thrown at him here to pull clear in the eleventh kilometre. In the end, it proved a comfortable victory over runner-up Leonard Patrick Komon, from Kenya, and Tadese, whose valiant title defence was rewarded with the bronze medal.
“As far as the sixth Long Course win is concerned, I tried to accomplish it last year but, because of the weather, I was not able to do it,” Bekele said. “This has a very high honour in my life. I have won the double five times but I think this compares to that. However, I leave the judging to those of you in the media.”
It was in the third kilometre that Bekele’s shoe was caught from behind, and worked loose, as the field bunched taking a bend. From his place near the front, he dropped way down the field as he stopped to secure it. “My shoe did not fall completely off but I had to stop to undo it and put it back on, so it was as if it fell off because of the effort needed to put it back on,” he said It was the first time, he added, such a misfortune had befallen him.
Having secured his shoe, Bekele worked his way back up the field and, before long, was in the leading group. When Tadese picked up the pace in the seventh kilometre, Bekele was well placed to respond. Dictating from the front, Tadese threw in several bursts, by the end of which he and Bekele had opened a small gap on the last challenging Kenyans, Komon and Joseph Ebuya.
A brief relaxation of pace allowed Komon and Ebuya to close up but, with four kilometres to run, the front four were well clear. With Tadese at the head, and the Kenyan pair side-by-side behind him, Bekele sat at the back before seizing his moment. Of his recovery from his near shoe disaster, he said: “It was near the beginning and I knew it would make the competition difficult because it is not easy to catch up after losing your shoe.
“I knew it would make the rest of the race tough. After the shoe came off I began to think a great deal about what I had to overcome and I had to focus a great deal on my race. If I had tried immediately to catch up it may have affected the rest of my race but instead I controlled my pace.”
Bekele had arrived later than planned in Edinburgh the day before the race. He missed his flight connection at London Heathrow after a delay to his original Ethiopian Airlines flight from Addis Ababa left him with only 30 minutes to connect in London. His delay was unrelated to the widely-publicised teething problems at Heathrow’s new Terminal 5.
Explaining how stomach trouble almost cost him dearly again, as it had last year, Bekele said: “The day before yesterday, as I was flying in from Ethiopia, there was a delay and I spent the night in London and arrived here yesterday about midday. I had eaten breakfast there before I left and, after it, I didn’t feel well. I then had lunch and dinner here and at night I didn’t feel well. I had to get up three or four times in the night to go to the bathroom and I wasn’t feeling good.”
Tadese said that he was happy with his run – “a bronze medal for my country is still important to me” – while Komon made a big impression in his first year out of the junior ranks. Aged 20, he led Kenya to a third successive team triumph (39 points) with Ethiopia second (105) and Qatar third (144).
(Reuters) EDINBURGH – Tirunesh Dibaba won the women’s cross country world championship gold medal for the third time on Sunday when she led home Mestawet Tufa for an Ethiopian one-two.
Tirunesh Dibaba
Dibaba, winner in 2005 and 2006 but upset by Dutchwoman Lornah Kiplagat in Mombasa last year, timed her run expertly over the 8km course.
She piled on the pressure on the final ascent of the gruelling Haggis Knowe Hill to break a leading pack of four before driving home to finish in 25 minutes 10 seconds.
The four-times track world champion had arrived in Scotland with little racing behind her and doubts over her fitness but she was an emphatic winner ahead of Tufa and 18-year-old Kenyan Linet Chepkwemoi Masai. Ethiopia took the team title.
Dibaba’s victory completed a satisfying family double as younger sister Genzebe won the junior women’s race earlier in the day.
————————— Dibaba sisters make it a family affair – Edinburgh 2008
By Matthew Brown, IAAF
Edinburgh, Scotland – As inspiration goes it takes some beating. Only minutes after becoming the most successful woman in the history of the IAAF World Cross Country Championships Tirunesh Dibaba stood in the flapping white tent that served as a media/athlete mixed zone in Edinburgh’s Holyrood Park and insisted it wasn’t her own victory that had painted the broad, joyful smile on her mud-spotted 22-year-old face.
What does it mean to win your third World Cross Country long course title, she was asked? “Yes, I am very happy to win again,” she replied. “But I am more happy about my sister than I am about myself.”
Just an hour before Dibaba had defied the doubters by winning her fifth individual World Cross Country gold, her 17-year-old sister Genzebe had sprung a surprise by winning the junior women’s title, emulating her older sister’s victory from 2003, the first of Tirunesh’s eight-medal haul.
For Genzebe it was her first major honour of any kind and an immediate inspiration to Tirunesh who was watching, nervously, from the sidelines. Indeed, she was meant to be warming up for her own race, but the anxiety proved too much and Tirunesh neglected her own preparations as her sister snatched an unexpected gold and set Ethiopia on the way to a record-breaking day.
“No, I didn’t warm up a lot,” said Tirunesh. “I was watching Genzebe’s race and I was very anxious for her, more anxious than I was for myself.
“I am so happy now that we have both won golds, but I am more happy for her than I am for me.”
The Dibaba sisters may have become the first athletes from the same family to win gold medals at these championships, but neither was assured of victory until the final stages of their races. Indeed, they adopted strikingly similar race tactics.
Both spent the early laps hanging off the lead but never losing touch with the front runners. Both made their strikes on the final climb around the one testing hill on the Holyrood Park course, known to natives of Edinburgh as Haggis Knowe. And both produced unmatchable bursts of speed from the summit to take them clear of their rivals.
What’s more, after finishing fifth last year in Mombasa, when she and two of her teammates miscounted the laps, Genzebe wasn’t even favourite for her event, while Tirunesh’s form and fitness were in doubt after unsolved stomach problems had caused her to cancel much of her 2007 track season.
Incredibly, according to officials from the Ethiopian team, she was still only 75 per cent fit coming in to today’s race. “The stomach was all right today,” she said. “In the middle of the race I did begin to feel it but it slowly went away, so maybe it’s not like in the past.”
Afterwards, with the doubts truly laid to rest, both sisters were eager to give each other credit for their wins.
For Genzebe, it was Tirunesh’s “very good” pre-race advice that held the key, while for Tirunesh it was the thought of her sister’s win that spurred her into one last heroic effort at the end of her gruelling, and compelling, 8km race.
“It was partly in order to match her (Genzebe’s) achievement that I dug in and put everything I had into winning,” she said.
Back in Ethiopia they actually compete for different clubs – Genzebe for the Muger Cement Sports Club and Tirunesh for the Prisons Police – but they do often train together, along with their older sister, Ejagayou, the Olympic 10,000m silver medallist. They also plan to come together in the same club later this year.
“Genzebe is so young and talented,” said Dibaba of her younger sister. “In time I expect she’ll become even stronger and quicker than me.”
But for the Dibabas the habit of winning World Cross Country titles runs even further back in the family. Derartu Tulu, the champion in 1995, 1997 and 2000, is their cousin and Tirunesh was also keen to pay respects to the first great lady of Ethiopian distance running.
“I am aware that my cousin has won this race three times, so I’m very happy to have done the same thing,” she said.
For Tirunesh, today’s victory was something of a redemption after she was beaten last year in the heat of Mombasa by the Dutchwoman Lornah Kiplagat when chasing a third consecutive gold. It was a tough year for Ethiopia as a whole and Tirunesh was clearly motivated this afternoon by the need to put things right.
“Last year, as individuals and as a team we didn’t do well,” she said. “This year we redeemed ourselves. We have been preparing for a long time. Cross country is very important to us and we wanted to bring a strong team and do very well here.”
Well and truly redeemed on the grass, now Dibaba will aim to match her cousin again, on the track, by becoming the Olympic 10,000m champion. “I expect to do well,” she said of the Beijing Olympics this August.
Perhaps she should make sure Genzebe races as well – just for the inspiration.
————————- Sibling rivalry drives Dibaba sisters to world cross-country glory
(AFP) EDINBURGH – Genzebe Dibaba of Ethiopia. Sibling rivalry helped the Dibaba household gather a further two golds at the world cross-country championships with victories for sisters Tirunesh and Genzebe in the senior and junior women’s events
Sibling rivalry helped the Dibaba household gather a further two golds at the world cross-country championships with victories for sisters Tirunesh and Genzebe in the senior and junior women’s events.
For Tirunesh, the win was a third over the gruelling long-course event, and the 22-year-old double world gold medallist in both the 5,000 and 10,000m admitted she had been inspired by her younger sister’s performance.
“My sister was out first and it was partly in order to match her achievement that I dug in and put everything I had into it to win,” she said.
“When Genzebe was competing, I was warming up. I was very anxious for her, indeed more so for her than myself.
“I’m happy we’ve brought home two gold medals, and I’m happier for her gold than mine.”
Genzebe Dibaba, 17, acknowledged that her victory over a strong field in the junior women’s race had come as a surprise.
“I’m very happy,” she said. “I didn’t expect to win. I only thought that I would medal.
“But on the third lap I realised that I could win. I am really happy to emulate my sisters.”
Tirunesh said that she sometimes trained alongside Genzebe and elder sister Ejegayehu, the silver medallist at 10,000m at the Athens Olympics Games in 2004.
“We all three train together at times when we’re not training for our respective clubs. I’m hoping to bring Genzebe into the same club as me.”
Ethiopia’s Tirunesh Dibaba. Sibling rivalry helped the Dibaba household gather a further two golds at the world cross-country championships with victories for sisters Tirunesh and Genzebe in the senior and junior women’s events
The winning performances by the Dibabas were just half of an overwhelming Ethiopian cleansweep of individual medals, compatriots Kenenisa Bekele and Ibrahim Jeilan winning the senior and junior men’s races respectively.
“Last year (in Mombasa) as a team and individuals we did not do well, and disappointed the country but this is redemption,” said Tirunesh Dibaba, who added that she had no doubt she had it in her for a final burst.
“I thought I could catch up with the leading three. I saw there were Ethiopians and I knew I could do it.
“The weather was much better here than the stifling heat and humidity of Mombasa, and we produced a much better performance as a team.”
She added that targeting both the world cross-country championships and participation at the Beijing Olympic Games was a realistic goal, unlike many European nations who either pulled their best runners or failed to enter a team for the world cross.
“Each country has its own priorities, and it might only be the Olympics,” she said diplomatically. “Our own priorities are cross-country and the Olympics and I believe we have the time to prepare for that.”
Kenenisa Bekele clears all obstacles for cross-country crown
By Mitch Phillips, Reuters
EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND – Kenenisa Bekele overcame illness, a dislodged shoe and the presence of a nervous wife to win a record sixth long course cross country world title on Sunday and confirm last year’s shock defeat was an aberration.
BKenenisa set a record with his sixth
overall world long-course title. (Photo: Getty)
Sunday’s success took his tally to a remarkable 11 senior world cross titles, with the only blip coming when he dropped out with heat exhaustion in Mombasa last year and watched Eritrea’s Zersenay Tadese take his title.
There was no danger of a repeat with regard to the climate on Sunday in a cold and windy Scottish capital, though Tadese did threaten a second success with a strong, front-running performance in the early stages.
The Eritrean was helped when Bekele had to stop to replace his shoe, half torn off after being clipped by another runner, but the Ethiopian recovered smoothly and eventually won handsomely, with Tadese relegated to third behind Kenya’s Leonard Patrick Komon.
“After stopping to put my shoe back on I was thinking a lot about it, trying to focus and control my race because if I had tried to catch up too quickly it wouldn’t have worked,” Bekele told a news conference.
“But when I got back up with the leaders I was happy to sit back where I could monitor them and where I could get some shelter from the wind.
“I was more concerned about my stomach,” added Bekele, who was ill in London on Friday having missed his connecting flight from Addis Ababa.
“Last night I wasn’t feeling good and I was up four times to go to the toilet so I knew it was going to be tough. It was hard with the mud too but it was the same for everyone so it didn’t bother me too much.”
Bekele showed the classic cross-country combination of speed and strength when he forged clear on the penultimate ascent of Haggis Knowe, a fierce climb that split the field in every race on Sunday.
ADULATION
He then piled on the pressure to cross the line well clear and began to accept the adulation.
“I’ve won double gold medals five times at this competition but this one was very special for me,” he said.
“This record sixth title is a high honour in my life but who it compares to I’ll leave for others to judge.”
The presence of his wife, Ethiopian film actress Danawit Gebregziabher, watching him live at a major event for the first time, also seemed more of a distraction than a support.
“Somebody told me afterwards that when my shoe came off she nearly fainted so it did add a lot of pressure,” he said.
Bekele can now turn his attention to Beijing, where he is likely to defend his 10,000 metres title and might also attempt the 5,000.
Before then, however, he has the African championships in May on home soil in Addis, where, along with the three other Ethiponian individual gold medallists on Sunday, he will almost certainly turn out.
“To not race would be like putting on a great feast and being the guest of honour and then not turning up,” he said.
“It’s a bit close to this so it won’t be easy but I do believe I have to take part, though I’m not sure what distance.”
Still only 25, Bekele’s appetite for competition remains undimmed and the world and Olympic champion and multi-world record holder says he has set no time limit on his career.
“I have accomplished a lot but I want to keep competing at this level for a long time,” he said. “I want to go on as long as I can and leave a legacy to the sport.”
