{{Mohammed Aman was outmuscled and jostled, but belied his diminutive size to produce a devastating sprint and claim a first-ever medal of any colour for Ethiopia in the world 800m by winning gold on Tuesday.}}<\/p>\n
The two-lap event had sadly been shorn of the sublime talents of the injured David Rudisha, the Kenyan who broke the world record in winning the Olympic title last year.<\/p>\n
But, in his absence, Aman, the 19-year-old world indoor champion who has twice got the better of Rudisha, stepped into the void with some style.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m the first Ethiopian to win a 800m gold medal!\u201d Aman said. \u201cThis gold medal is a big thing for me and my country.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was not easy, a world championships final is such a hard race. All the athletes in the race were very strong and it\u2019s a double pleasure to be first in such company.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aman added: \u201cI was confident because I have speed on the last 100 metres and also nervous because it is the worlds and one has to be careful and smart.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t want to be boxed in like the semi-final so I just stayed patient when Symmonds and Solomon kicked off.\u201d<\/p>\n
The race was bunched for all but the final 200 metres, fancied American Duane Solomon bossing his way into the front as Frenchman Pierre-Ambroise Bosse almost sideswiped Aman coming out of the first corner run in lanes.<\/p>\n
At the bell, American Nick Symmonds came racing through, Aman again muscled out of the way and then boxed in behind the leading American duo.<\/p>\n
The field spread with 200m to go in the run-in to the home strait. Symmonds went wide around Solomon, but Aman worked to go wider and outsprinted the American to the line for victory in 1min 43.31sec.<\/p>\n
Symmonds held on for silver in 1:43.55, with a fast-advancing Ayanleh Souleiman claiming bronze in 1:43.76, a first medal for Djibouti since Ahmed Salah won silver in the marathon in the 1991 Tokyo worlds.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m happy with my performance,\u201d said Symmonds. \u201cI had a chance for gold and I hope some day I\u2019ll win it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe competition without Rudisha was like a gift on a silver plate and nobody wanted to waste the chance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Souleiman said that \u201ctonight all of Djibouti will celebrate because there hasn\u2019t been any medal since 25 years\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m still in the 1500m on Wednesday and God willing I will win.\u201d<\/p>\n
Solomon, who finished fourth in the London Olympic final in a time that in all previous finals would have seen him win a medal, faded to sixth behind Poland\u2019s Marcin Lewandowski and fifth-place Briton Andrew Osagie.<\/p>\n
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{{Mohammed Aman was outmuscled and jostled, but belied his diminutive size to produce a devastating sprint and claim a first-ever medal of any colour for Ethiopia in the world 800m by winning gold on Tuesday.}} The two-lap event had sadly been shorn of the sublime talents of the injured David Rudisha, the Kenyan who broke […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[99],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-9743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","tag-greatlakesnews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9743\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9743"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=9743"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=9743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}