The World Indoor Track Championships provided real value for money in Valencia, Spain, on Day 1
Whereas Time-to-Run is aimed more at the running part of athletics and mainly 800m to the marathon and above with plans to cover Trail and Adventure, we cannot not comment on the magnificent performances of Tia Hellebaut and Kelly Sotherton in the 800m, the final event of the Women's Pentathlon.
Going into the 800m Belgium's Hellebaut, a champion high jumper and winner of 2 World indoor High Jump titles, led Britain's Sotherton by 107 points, 3994 to 3887.
In order for Sotherton to win the Gold she had to beat Hellebaut by 7 seconds, if she was to do this she would need to muster a massive push towards setting up the 7.7 second cushion once they crossed the line. The 800m indoors consists of 4x200m and Sotherton clad with her white socks, ala Paula Radcliffe style, set off at a slightly suicidal pace for the first 200m in 30 seconds. She was tracking Polish athlete, Karolina Tyminska, and at 400m in 1:03.48, there seemed a distinct possibility that if she maintained a certain tempo and that Hellebaut faded the Gold would be hers. The Belgium athlete did not look good at this point and she was making mistakes with the tracking and attempted passing of other athletes all adding to the loss of energy.
With a lap to go at 600m, the clock read 1.37 for Sotherton and her lips were a shade of greyish white telling the viewer the extent of the stress of 5 events on one day plus a grueling 800m faster than she had every run before. The Brit grit her teeth and pumped her arms drawing from her last bits of will and determination to set-up a new Personal Best of 2:09.95. Her performance was phenomenal to say the least however what was to be witnessed next from Tia Hellebaut was simply staggering to watch. The tall bespectacled athlete began to weave and falter as she drove herself towards the line summoning from her very depths the ability to put one leg in front of the other. Even this was proving a task as her legs began to move in different directions causing her to stagger from left to right, alongside her Ukraine athlete, Lyudmila Blonska, was fighting a battle of her own to stay upright and she went crashing to the ground.
At the same time, Hellebaut's tall figure began the decent towards the track surface and it seemed as though there was an invisible figure that was stopping her from hitting the tartan. She did crash down however her body crossed the line in the process.
And with this process she denied Sotherton the Gold by a measely 12 points. Her time was 2:16.42, 6.47 seconds behind and 1 second plus enough for Gold.
The two athletes reminded us why this sport is great and gave all of us who were witness a sense of value to living through them.
Thank you
TheEd
