Meseret Defar to challenge Vivian Cheruiyot in Oslo 5000m challenge – Samsung Diamond League

Oslo – Meseret Defar, the former Olympian from Ethiopia has confirmed her participation in the women’s 5000m contest at the ExxonMobil Bislett Games which are to commence on June 9. The event is regarded as the fifth stop of the 14-leg Samsung Diamond League
series.

In Oslo, Norway, Defar will appear and perform in the same stadium where she had marked her world record in women’s 5000m back in 2007. For clocking an impressive finishing time of fourteen minutes and 16.63 seconds, she improved her previous year’s record
in New York by staggering eight seconds.

But just about a year later, it was Defar’s country woman and close rival Tirenesh Dibaba who emphatically named the world record for 5000m at at Bislett Stadium by marking an incredible fourteen minutes and 11.15 seconds.

Defar, the formidable Ethiopian runner has always been in the limelight for bagging a number of honours during her career. She has been an Olympic gold medal winner, has bagged a World Championships gold medal and has claimed the world indoor 3000m title
for no less than 4 times. Nevertheless, appearing in this year’s Samsung Diamond League event, the girl is expected to encounter some real challenge.

Back in 2007, when Defar marked her world record, she had battled a young and relatively unknown athlete from Kenya, known as Vivian Cheruiyot whose performance in the event was simply remarkable. For opting a strategy usually followed by the experienced
runners, Cheruiyot doggedly followed Defar for most part of her race and consequently, managed to stand second at the podium for clocking 14.22.51. Her performance was just under then World Record.

Since then, Cheruiyot continued to improve and her efforts paid her the dividends two years later when in 2009 she appeared to be the World Champion in 5000m women competition. Earlier, this year, the girl has once again displayed her resolve to dish-out
the best performance to her spectators by emerging at the World Cross Country event held in Punta Umbria, Spain.

Last weekend, while appearing in the Samsung Diamond League meeting in Shanghai, the girl cruised a 61 second final lap for prevailing victorious in the 5000m event. In the ongoing year, the girl has marked her potential well in two major events (the World
Cross Country and Shanghai), which marks the fact that while encountering her very first rival of an international event, she will certainly look forward to mark no less than a world record.

However, the robust field of the Oslo event is not confined to these two athletes only, rather, it will also include Kenya’s world 10,000m champion Linet Masai along with her country woman Sylvia Kibet, and Ethiopia’s Sentayehu Ejigu and Meselech Melkamu.
Besides having such huge field with impressive track record, this year’s Samsung Diamond League’s 5000m women event at Oslo will also witness the traditional Ethiopia-Kenya rivalry on the track.