Several athletes - including Morocco's Jaouad Gharib and Tirunesh Dibaba of Ethiopia - have doubled their gold medal totals on the penultimate day of the World Athletics championships in Helsinki, Finland.
Gharib overcame stomach pains to defend his men's marathon title in 2:10:10. The Moroccan joins Abel Anton of Spain as the only men to win back-to-back world marathon titles. Christopher Isegwe of Tanzania was second, 11 seconds back with Japan's Tsuyoshi Ogata third (2:11:16).
In the women's 5000 meters race, Dibaba defended her title by beating three compatriots and finishing in a championship record time of 14:38.9.
The victory made the 19-year-old Ethiopian the first woman to win both the 10,000 and 5,000 meters titles at the same championship.
The U.S. team of Angela Daigle, Muna Lee, Me'Lisa Barber and Lauryn Williams won the women's 4x100 meter relay race in 41.78 seconds. Jamaica was second (41.99) with Belarus third (42.56). Williams also won the women's 100 meters title earlier in the championships.
France took the men's 4x100 meter relay race with Trinidad and Tobago second and Britain third. France's win gave Ladji Doucouré his second gold medal of the championships. Doucouré won the 110 meter hurdles gold medal earlier this week.
American Dwight Phillips successfully defended his long jump title finishing with a distance 8.60 meters. Ghana's Ignisious Gaisah was second (8.34 meters) with Tommi Elvila of Finland third (8.25 meters).
In the women's 400 meter hurdles, Yulia Pechonkina of Russia won the gold medal in 52.9 seconds. Americans Lashinda Demus and Sandra Glover finished second and third respectively.
Nadezhda Ostapchuk of Belarus won the gold in the women's shot put with a toss of 20.51 meters. Olga Ryabinkina of Russia was second (19.64 meters) with Valerie Vili of New Zealand winning the bronze medal (19.62 meters).
The U.S. team leads the medals table with 24 medals including 13 golds. Russia is second with 15 medals, five of them gold. The competition concludes Sunday with finals in the women's marathon, javelin, 1,500 meters and 4x 400 meter relay. Men's gold medals will be awarded in the high jump, 800 meters, 5,000 meters, and 4x 400 meter relay.
Some information for this report provided by AFP and AP.
