Rudisha wins second world title

By Tom Fordyce Chief sports writer in Beijing

Olympic 800m champion David Rudisha put three years of injury, disappointment and defeat behind him to win his second world title and re-establish himself as one of his sport’s great superstars.

The world record holder, 26, is not yet in the same shape that saw him produce arguably the finest individual athletics performance of the 2012 Games.

But just as in London, he dictated the race from the front, this time winding it up from 250 metres out rather than from the gun and burning off the men queuing up on his shoulder with a blistering last 80 metres.

Poland’s European champion Adam Kszczot kicked hard to come through for silver, with Bosnia’s Amel Tuka taking bronze – Rudisha’s frequent nemesis Nijel Amos having crashed out in the semi-finals.

Rudisha’s winning time of one minute 45.84 seconds was almost five seconds outside the time he set in winning gold in 2012, but this was less about times and more about ending a barren run that stretched back almost as far.

Injury kept him out of the World Championships in Moscow two years ago, while Amos beat him to gold at the Commonwealths last summer, but here in Beijing the Kenyan has found his best form of the season at the critical time.

Another middle-distance world record holder, Ethiopian starlet Genzebe Dibaba,
ran the final 800 metres in 1:57.20 to seize her first global 1500m title, judging the race superbly as her rival Sifan Hassan left herself far too much to do in the last 150 metres.

Dibaba, whose elder sister Tirunesh is a multiple world champion, won in 4:08.09, and the 24-year-old looks good to add more medals of her own after dictating the final like a veteran.

Hassan of the Netherlands tried to close in the home straight but had given Dibaba too big a lead, and as she faded in the final strides, Kenya’s Faith Kipyegon came past to pip her for silver. Britain’s Laura Muir
fought her way through the field on the home straight to take an excellent fifth in 4:11.48.

In a championships not short of shocks – including world pole vault record holder and Olympic champion Renaud Lavillenie taking only bronze and world leader Nijel Amos failing to make the 800m final – the biggest yet came in the women’s discus. Defending champion and Olympic gold medallist Sandra Perkovic could take only silver behind Cuba’s Denia Caballero.

And there was another upset in the men’s 400m hurdles final when Kenya’s Nicholas Bett
smashed his personal best by almost half a second as he came through from lane nine to take gold.

Russia’s Denis Kudryavtsev
set a personal best of his own for silver with Jeffery Gibson of the Bahamas setting a third national record in third, the USA’s fancied Michael Tinsley clattering hurdles to fall away in the home straight and trail in last.