DOHA, Qatar — North Yarmouth native Ben True finished eighth in his heat and did not advance to the finals in the 5,000 meters Friday at the world track and field championships.
True was 17th overall in a time of 13 minutes, 27.39 seconds. The top five finishers in the two qualifying heats and the next five fastest times advanced to the finals, which will be held on Monday.
Paul Chelimo of the United States ran the fastest time in qualifying, finishing in 13:20.18.
True missed the final by less than a second. The last qualifier was Great Britain’s Andrew Butchart, at 13:26.46.
The championship opened Friday night in open-air stadium with air conditioning, which was cooling thousands of empty seats, many of them covered by enormous canvas signs.
The air conditioning kept the track about 20 degrees cooler than in the city – cooled by vents that were switched off at ground level during competitions to avoid impacting performances.
“The tricky part is going into a really hot climate into the stadium where it’s cooler,” said U.S. sprinter Justin Gatlin. “It’s going to be playing tricks on your muscles.”
The marathon runners will have no such cooling technology to assist them on the steamy streets of Doha. The women’s marathon started at midnight and finished early Saturday morning local time. Ruth Chepngetich of Kenya overcame sweltering heat and humidity to win the gold medal with a runaway marathon victory, finishing in 2 hours, 32 minutes, 43 seconds.
The conditions when she crossed the finish line: 88 degrees, 77 percent humidity and not a breath of wind.
Twenty-three of the 68 starters had dropped out by the time Chepngetich finished – a good indicator of the suffering taking place all across the 7-kilometer loop the runners ran through six times.
When athletes traveled to the stadium earlier Friday, it was 99 degrees, with a “feels like” temperature of 122.
The heat affected one runner in the men’s 5,000, as Jonathan Busby of Aruba struggled to finish well behind the leaders. Braima Suncar Dabo of Guinea-Bissau stopped his own race to help Busby cross the line.
Comments are not available on this story.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
