will the kenyan athletes topple the ethiopian athletes at 5000mr women?

Looks like it.. after dibaba and defar ..its a slippery slope.. Melakamu and Burka had a bad championships// but don't count them out.

I think that the Ethio team will no longer sweep medals. Dibaba and defar are way too strong and young to go down.

However the gap is narrowing. It will be more exciting.

No young Ethiopians ..making noise these days.

Maybe emebt eta and some and Ayanu will make a big adere like move later in there career.

Overall, ethiopia still ahead.. but by a nose.

Kenyan women tend to fade in there career quicker. Lydia cheromei (sp?) and rose cheriyot etal.,

Ethio boy,

I agree. You actually reminded me of that once sensational teenager, Lydia cheromei. I had totally forgotten about her. Yes, Kenyan women fade away quickly and this has been an issue of concern in the country, the sports circles and the Kenyan media. I hope it is being addressed.

With reference to the original question, I am so happy for our women and the country is too.

If you check the last junior championships and World youth championships, the Kenyan teenagers have done extremely well. This gives us the consolation that we have many high class athletes who will be maturing in the next two to three years but the problem is, except for people like Masai Edith and Ndereba who started running late and are still strong, most of them just fade away.

Defar and Dibaba will be here for a long time. If Dibaba had been healthy, Ethiopia would have gone 1-2 with Cheruiyot taking bronze in the 5k and partially, that is the problem Ethiopia has. Ethiopia's medals come from Bekele, Sihine, Defar and Dibaba which is a good thing and a bad thing.

On the contrary, Kenya scores medals from different athletes which is also a good thing and a bad thing. The bad thing is that if I may use the steeplechase illustration, save for Kiptanui Moses andKemboi (Ezekiel), no Kenyan defends his title or even wins another medal in a subsequent event (competition). Tergat also successfullly defended his silver in both olympics (I say this witha little humour).

Haile won Olympics 96 and 00.

IF Bekele got injured just before Beijing Olympics, everything would be placed on the shoulders of Sileshi and teh other EAst AFricans would terrorise him. He'd still probably win but that would be one less medal for Ethiopia which always goes 1-2.

Kenya didn't have the best 10k team. I'd have chosen the same team that was in the Olympics, i.e. Mosop and Mathathi instead of Ndambiri and Kipkorir Menjo. The third guy would have been Edwin Soi, Micah Kogo or Samwel Wanjiru. That way, no Kenyanwould have been overlapped. Wanjiru had been selected for the team but he declined and therefore, Kogo or soi would have done a better job.

Mathathi has no speed whatsoever. Mosop has very good speed but didn't make the team. He would go toe to toe with Sihine at least and even if he loses, that is a good thing instead of letting the Ethiopian have an easy roll to the medal podium. It even makes the race more colourful.

If Kenya gets its act together, there'd be no reasonas to why ethiopia would sweep the medals. They'd most probably go 1-2, but Kenya would get bronze and probably even fourth while still factoring in other runners like ZEbenech Tola (the Ethiopian who runs for Turkey).

As I said earlier, This race gave Kenya a big psychological boost and made Ethiopia think deep and hard. Cheruiyot has run faster than Dibaba and whereas I don't want to suggest anything, it is not a good thing for the Ethiopian FEderation.

I don't have time to search and post some of the KEnyan junior female athletes who competed in Ostrava an d Beijing but they did win more medals than the Ehtiopians and that is a good thing.

Sorry for the rumbling incoherence. I have to run somewhere but at least you get my point-hopefully.