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Ma Junren's Runners Dominate Women's 1,500 and 10,000m Events
Woman runners of legendary Chinese coach Ma Junren made a clean sweep of medals in the 1,500- and 10,000 meters events at the Chinese national athletics Olympic trials on Thursday.
The victory was taken by some experts as signaling an all-out renaissance of the country's once dominant middle- and long- distance running dynasty.
Ma, who jumped to fame by guiding his protegees Liu Dong, Qu Yunxia and Wang Junxia to three gold medals in the 1993 Stuttgart world championships, saw his new-generation runners in the stand cruise to victories.
Lan Lixin won the 1,500m in four minutes 22.90 seconds, well outside her personal best of 3:53.97, which was world's eigth best-ever result.
Li Jingnan finished second in 4:05.33 and Yin Lili, whose personal best time is 3:53.91, was third in 4:07.25.
Seven of the world's top 10 best time were clocked by members of the "Ma's Family Army", with the world record of 3:50.46 set by Qu Yunxia in 1993.
The women's 10,000m was won by Li Ji in a time of 32:22.90. Dong Yanmei, winner in the 5,000m here on Wednesday, trailed Li for most of time and finished second in 32:23.21. Their teammate Song Liqing took the third place in 32:38.90.
Dong emerged from almost nowhere at the National Games in 1997 to win the women's 1,500m event and broke the then world record of 5,000m event.
Her personal best time in the 10,000m of 30:38.09 stands fourth in the world's all-time list.
The world record of 29:31.78 was also held by an elder teammate Wang Junxia, winner of the event in the 1993 world championships and gold medalist of the 5,000m event in the Atlanta Olympic Games.
Ma was not satisfied with his runners'performance, but he predicted that they will be mature in the next two years.
"They are very young and plagued with injuries," Ma said. "In the next three months before the Olympic Games, we will train hard and try not to let the Chinese people down."
In the day's other events, Li Lei broke the women's javelin Asian record with a throw of 63.69 meters, which was the only Asian record broken during two days' competition.
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