10000 metres (Women's)

Games: 8 games in 8 countries
First Held: 1988 Summer Games
Last Held: 2016 Summer Games

Participants: 224 from 56 countries
Top Athlete Medalist(s):  Derartu Tulu and  Tirunesh Dibaba (3 medals)
Top Country Medalist(s): Ethiopia (10 medals)

10000 meter Event for Men at Olympics: The 10000 meter event is the longest among the long distance events competed on the running track. The athletes participating in the event are often excellent in cross country racing and road racing.

10000 meter Event for Men in Summer Olympics: The 10000 meter event was included in the Olympics schedule at the 1912 Stockholm Summer Games. Since the 1912 Games, the event has been held at every Summer Games. The athletes from Finland and the African countries have been the leading figures in the 10000 meter event.

Rules for 10000 meter Event for Men at Olympics: The International Association of Athletics Federations or IAAF has set various rules for the track and field athletic events. The rules relevant for the 10000 meter running event at all the major international competitions are-

• The length of the running track and the width of each lane on the track have been fixed by the IAAF.
• The IAAF has determined that the radius of the outside lane of the running track has to be within 50 meter of length.
• When the number of athletes in the event is more than twelve, preliminary heats are held among the participants. The runners have to qualify in the heats to compete in the next round. All the participants are bound to compete in the heats.
• Running inside the inner curve of the track, or stepping on the inner line of the track during the race is not allowed in the international competitions.
• An athlete is disqualified from the competition after the commencement of two false starts.
• An athlete cannot obstruct his competitors' way during the race. If someone is found committing the offence, he is liable for disqualification. The race may also be re-run excluding the disqualified athlete.
• If an athlete steps out of the track during the race, he is not allowed to join his competitors.
• The athlete is not given any for credit for his performance, if he cannot finish the race.
• Only the IAAF approved automatic timing device can be used for measuring the time during the races.

Medal Winners in the 10000 meter Event for Men at Olympics: The athletes from Finland and the African countries have been dominating the international competitions at the 10000 meter event. Some of the athletes who have excelled in the event are Hannes Kolehmainen, Paavo Nurmi, Ville Ritola, Janusz Kusocinski, Ilmari Salminen, Emil Zatopek, Vladimir Kuts, Pyotr Bolotnikov, Billy Mills, Naftali Temu, Lasse Viren, Miruts Yifter, Alberto Cova, Brahim Boutayeb, Khalid Skah, Haile Gebrselassie and Kenenisa Bekele.

In a continuing series, Steve Smythe looks back at the women’s 3000m to 10,000m events at the Olympics

1984-2012

Romania won the inaugural 3000m in 1984 (see “most memorable races” below) and looked like they might defend the title through Paula Ivan in 1988 in Seoul, but a 59.4-second last lap from 1987 world champion Tatyana Samolenko saw the Soviets win gold in 8:26.53, which was just outside the world record, with Ivan second.

The 10,000m made its debut in Seoul and that also resulted in a Soviet victory. World record-holder and world champion Ingrid Kristiansen had been the favourite but had suffered a miscarriage in the summer. She nevertheless won her heat but damaged her foot and had to drop out after six laps of the final. Olga Bondarenko won with a strong last lap.

Samolenko, under her married name Dorovskikh, defended her world 3000m title in 1991 but was surprisingly outkicked by her Soviet team-mate Yelena Romanova in Barcelona in 1992 in the last final over seven and a half laps. She failed a drugs test the following year.

The 10,000m turned out to be a duel between Elana Meyer, who was South Africa’s best medal hope in their long-awaited return to competition, and Ethiopian Derartu Tulu. Meyer set a fast pace but couldn’t shake off Tulu, who then sped to a 65-second last lap to win by five seconds. Tulu and Meyer, South Africa’s first medallist for 32 years after the apartheid-related ban, famously shared a lap of honour.

Wang Junxia, who had set still-standing world records at 3000m and 10,000m in 1993, was one of the favourites for the inaugural and poorly timetabled 5000m in Atlanta. She easily won a forgettable race in which Roberta Brunet won a medal seven seconds down on the Chinese as better-known names suffered.

In the 10,000m, Wang appeared to have the double sewn up as she sprinted 15 meters clear with 600 metres to go. She had won all her previous 13 10,000m races and it was a surprise when 1995 world champion Fernando Ribeiro closed the gap on the last lap and then went past 50 metres from the end.

In the Atlanta 5000m, the 1995 world champion Sonia O’Sullivan had been ill and dropped out but she was back in Sydney and had a great battle with 1997 and 1999 world champion Gabriela Szabo. She tried to pass the Romanian throughout the last lap, but Szabo repeatedly held her off and won by two metres. O’Sullivan had the consolation of winning Ireland’s first women’s track medal as Szabo set the current Olympic record of 14:40.79.

In the Sydney 2000, Paula Radcliffe set a furious pace with a 15:05.07 halfway time but couldn’t shake off four runners and, on the last lap, Tulu, who had been fourth in 1996, sprinted a 60 last lap to win by more than five seconds from team-mate and world champion Gete Wami and Ribeiro.

Ethiopia was expected to dominate the Athens 2004 race with a team so strong that world champion Berhane Adere did not even make their trio.

Ejegayehu Dibaba, the older sister of Tirunesh and Genzebe, won her battle with Tulu and Worknesh Kidane on the last lap and started wildly celebrating, strangely believing that young Chinese runner Xing Huina, who had passed her down the straight was a lapped runner.

In the 5000m, the middle laps were very fast and the then-little known 20 year-old Defar held on to Kenyan Isabella Ochichi’s driving pace and then sprinted past easily as world champion Tirunesh Dibaba finished third.

In Beijing in 2008 in the 10,000m, Turkey’s former Ethiopian Elvan Abeylegesse forced a furious pace, but Dibaba nevertheless eased past with a 60-second last lap and 2:48 final kilometre as she went to second all-time with an Olympic record 29:54.66. The runner-up ran 29:56.34 to go to third all-time.

In the 5000m in China, the Turk again forced the pace through the final kilometre but again Dibaba won easily – this time courtesy of a stunning 2:03 final 800m and 59-second last lap. Abeylegesse again took silver with Defar a well-beaten third.

The 5000m in London in 2012 was a modest affair for 3400 metres with Briton Pavey leading much of it.

Dibaba livened it up with successive laps of 68.95, 68.56 and 65.12, but she couldn’t stop Defar and Cheruiyot sprinting past in the last 100 metres. Defar covered the last lap inside 60 seconds and the last mile in 4:23, when the fastest mile of 2012 in a mile race was just 4:26.76!

Dibaba was possibly affected by her earlier 10,000m effort and an extravagant 5000m heat. In the longer race, she had taken 10 seconds out of bronze medallist Cheruiyot over the last 500 metres and five off Sally Kipyego.

10000 metres (Women's) History Year by Year (by IAAF) 1896-2012

Ethiopia's Tirunesh Dibaba entered as the defending 2012 Olympic champion and Vivian Cheruiyot of Kenya was the reigning 10,000 m World Champion at that point. However, it was Almaz Ayana who had the season-leading time of 30:07.00, the fastest time recorded in seven years for the distance and also her debut.

At the start of the race the 37-woman field was led by Alice Aprot Nawowuna of Kenya. Nawowuna quickly increased the pace, turning the group of runners into a single file, and after five laps the leading group was reduced to eight: three Kenyans (Nawowuna, Cheruiyot and Betsy Saina), three Ethiopians (Almaz Ayana, Tirunesh Dibaba and Gelete Burka), Kenyan ex-pat Yasemin Can of Turkey and Molly Huddle of the United States. The pace remained high from that point on, unusual for an international championship. Huddle was the first to fall away from the pack, followed by Gelete Burka. With twelve laps remaining, Almaz Ayana suddenly took the lead from Nawowuna, disrupting a leading group that had already begun to lap the race's slower runners.

Almaz Ayana continued the fast pace and even increased it, regularly running under 71 seconds per lap. Cheruiyot was the only other athlete near, though she was still some 15–20 metres behind. Almaz lapped all the runners from tenth downwards and completed the distance in 29:17.45,^[4] knocking 14 seconds off Wang Junxia's 22-year-old record (which itself had stood twenty-two seconds faster than any athlete before that point). Cheruiyot was runner-up and less than a second outside of the old world record. Defending champion Tirunesh Dibaba won the bronze with the fourth fastest time ever and Nawowuna was also under half an hour to record the fifth fastest time ever in fourth place.

In addition to Almaz Ayana's world and Olympic record time, a total of eight national records were broken at the competition. Molly Huddle's run of 30:13.17 in sixth place was the area record for the North, Central American and Caribbean region and number 17 of all time. In fifteenth place, just 5 weeks short of 43 years old, Jo Pavey set the Masters World Record at 31:33.44. Further down the field, only four of the top twenty athletes did not set personal bests.

The medals for the competition were presented by Mrs. Dagmawit Girmay Berhane, IOC member, and the gifts were presented by Lord Sebastian Coe, President of the International Association of Athletics Federations.

10000 metres (Women's) Progression of Olympic Record

10000 metres (Women's) 200 All time Best Perfomances