Bahrain’s Balew finishes 12th

Manama : Bahrain’s Birhanu Balew (13 minutes 43.25 seconds) finished 12th of the 15 runners in the 5,000 metres final at the 6th IAAF World Championships last night in London on its penultimate day.

Balew was never really in contention for a medal, which was dominated by double gold medal winner in both the 10,000 metres and 5,000 metres at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics Mohammed Farah last year and three Ethiopian runners.

Balew at one point was eighth after 2,000 metres, but fell behind the pace in the closing laps of the race.

Bahrain has one last chance of a medal on today’s concluding day of the championships, when Kalkidan Gezahegne with a personal and season best time of 15 minutes 7.19 seconds runs in the women’s 5,000 metres finals at 10.30pm Bahrain time.