The Olympics are fast approaching and the action will kick off in fine form with a SPECTACULAR women's 10,000 final

Smoking hot finals between the 5 Africans.

LetsRun.com wrote:

Just 95 minutes after the first athlete steps foot on the Rio track, it will be time for the first final of the 2016 Games and what a final it will be - the women's 10,000 final has it all.

We break it down for you here:

http://www.letsrun.com/?p=120875

Can Tirunesh Dibaba become the 1st woman to win 3 individual golds in the same event? Or will Almaz Ayana mark herself as the new world #1? Can defending world champ in Vivian Cheruiyot win her first Olympic gold? Can American Molly Infeld and or Molly Huddle medal? Will the American record go down?

*emily infeld

Huddle 5th, but bumped up to bronze or silver in the next 4 years after Ayana and one other gets busted.

people think Dibaba is dirty, yet she can't even beat Ayana, who we'd never heard of until she ran a 14:15 5k. yeah right

Ayana was bronze in 2013

Ummm....ever heard of Jordan Hasay? (Where is she btw?)

Dibaba has no chance whatsoever with a fresh Ayana. But then this is her best event considering she only ran 14:41 in the 5000m which puts her completely out of medal contention. She will therefore put her best effort here for a chance at bronze at best.

Vivian too is PROBABLY no match for a fresh Ayana in either the 10K or 5K. I say probably because the Vivian we saw at the Kenyan Olympic trials was at a whole different level than she has ever been in her entire running career. Her 15:01 win over 5K, beating Hellen Obiri (fresh from 14:32 PB) by over 12 seconds was such a great accomplishment and perhaps the best performance of the entire trials, considering she did this after putting on a solo display of front running to win the 10K the previous day over a stellar field by almost 30 seconds. Her 5K time was the fastest ever on Kenyan soil. And she accomplished all these at 7000 feet above sea level. Experts(ask Ventolin/Calculo) equate her 5K time to velow 14:20 and 10K time are approximately 30:00 at sea level. Given that Ayana is on that kind of level when fresh, I highly doubt she can double back and run a sub 14:40 after a possibly sub 30 performance over the 10K. The fact is Ayana will not have a walk in the park as she has done in all her previous races this year. Kenya's Alice Aprot, though a new face on international scene, features the same characteristics(race strategy) and is just as enormously talented as Ayana. She is the kind of girl who will push Ayana to her "knees"(to the limit). If somehow Ayana wins( I put at 60% chance), she will DNS(90% chance) in the 5K. Aprot has nothing to lose since she is only running the 10K so she will give her everything. That brings us back to Vivian. Since Vivian is doubling back in the 5K and the only one who would prevent her winning the 5K gold is Ayana, I would think she will be "conservative" in the 10K, let Ayana and Alice Aprot "counter-kill" each other and chase bronze and upgrade it to silver in case one of the two DNFs or "dies" out. She will just stick with Dibaba and outkick her at the end, which she would still need a sub 30:15 effort. Then a few days later, she will line up and go for Gold in the 5K. That is my take. Both the women and women 10000m will be the best ever and can't wait to watch them live.

They've invented paragraphs now.

You should try them.

Thanks for the great preview.

This is shaping up to be a special race with historical implications beyond even that of a "typical" Olympic final, all of which are somewhat historic by their very nature.

I don't have much to add except that Ayana is certainly my pick to win but it would be great to see Dibaba put the icing on the cake of her career by blazing one more victorious championship final lap.

Huddle has been so good over the last couple of years but it does seem like it'll be hard to medal. But who knows! If she PRs she could be right there.

This is a great preview, thank you for putting it together!

One thing that this article doesn't get into is the potential for team dynamics to play out here. In recent weeks there's been a lot of discussion about the strategy the Kenyan men are putting together to try and defeat Farah, and I think you'll see something similar in the women's 10,000m race this Friday between the Ethiopians and the Kenyans.

Over the years we've seen the Ethiopians work well together to set up a grinding pace to wear out the Kenyans over the 10,000m We saw similar tactics play out with Dibaba and Ayana in Moscow in 2013. I think we'll see Ayana start to push the pace after the first few kilometers with Dibaba tucking in behind her and grinding it out. The Kenyans will try to hold on, but they don't have the range of the Ethiopian women. Then it becomes a question of whether Dibaba will have the finishing speed that made her famous to overtake Ayana in the last 400m.

And it will be the least watched race other than 20k racewalk since no one wants to watch someone go 25 laps around a track. They should just show the last 800m for anything over a 1500.

Not interested in the cheating athletes.

Infeld and Huddle will be the first legit finishers. Would love to see hottie Infeld medal again.

Infeld is definitely the most attractive in the field. If she medals watch her become a household name!

Thanks - I can "break it down" for myself.