Tirunesh Dibaba  of Ethiopia can win gold on Friday, in the women's 5,000m. That would mean she had won both the longest track races at successive Olympics and put her in the same page as Usian Bolt of Jamaica who repeated his 100m and 200m Beijing success in London. Tirunesh retained her 10,000m crown a week ago with a scintillating last lap, demonstrating that she was back to her best after years of injury.

Ethiopia also has another athlete’s competing in 1500m gold in Abeba Aregawi. Abeba qualified for the gold medal race first in her heat at time of 4min 1.03 sec.