The head-to-head battle continues at the World Athletics Championship in Finland. Inas Mazhar reports from the Olympic Stadium in Helsinki At the 10th IAAF World Athletics Championship in Helsinki, five finals were set to take place on Thursday -- the men's pole vault, the 200 metres race, the triple jump, the javelin for wheelchair users and the women's 100 metres hurdles race. The other finals to be held in the coming four days will include the men's 50-kilometre race walk, the 400 metres, the marathon, the long jump, the 4x100 relay, the high jump, the wheelchair 200 metres, the 800 metres, the 5,000 metres, the 110 metres hurdle race and the 4x400 metres relay. For the women, 11 races remain: the 200 metres, the hammer throw, the shot put, the 400 metres hurdle race, the 5,000 metres, the 4x100 relay, the marathon, the 200 metres race, the javelin throw, the 1,500 metres race and the 4x400 meters relay race. The 10-day world championship ends on Sunday. Earlier this week, large crowds flocked to the first day of the championship. Nearly 65,000 people attended the opening day sessions, according to official figures released by the organisers. The figures also showed that 31,176 attended the morning session at Helsinki's historic Olympic Stadium, while the evening session -- which included the prestigious Opening Ceremony attended by dignitaries such as IAAF President Lamine Diack and President of the International Olympic Committee Jacques Rogge -- drew 32,730. The past few days have featured world-class competitions among the best players in their fields. A world record, a championship record, a year's lead and one of the toughest women's multi-events ever witnessed were the outstanding features of the second day of the World Championships in Helsinki. It is now close to 30 years since Finland had a great 10,000 metres runner -- the last was Lasse Viren, who won the second of his Olympic doubles in Montreal 1976. But even as temperatures plummeted in the 1952 Olympic Stadium on the evening of day one, the crowds still rose energetically to applaud the women's 10,000 metres race. And they saw a finish that was reminiscent of Viren at his best. The first glimmer of the gold medals that the Ethiopians have been working towards in recent years began immediately after Viren, when Miruts Yifter "The Shifter" won the same double in Moscow 1980. Old Miruts had a fine turn of speed, and so did his young compatriot, double World Cross Country champion, Tirunesh Dibaba. She used it to good effect -- essentially to run away from defending champion Berhane Adere and her elder sister Elegayehu Dibaba on the last lap. But the last kilometre had been run in 2:48.43, and the younger Dibaba covered the final 400 metres in just over 58 seconds to win her third major gold of the year. The Ethiopians were always going to be the quartet to beat, but there was much interest in -- and no small criticism of -- Paula Radcliffe's participation. Even former champions had criticised the Briton's decision to run both the 10,000 metres and the Marathon, and all the more so because she had dropped out of both races in Athens. But critics forgot that running 10,000 metres -- usually on the road -- is standard practice a week before a big Marathon. But the Ethiopans were just biding their time. They took control with three to go, with China's Olympic champion Xing Huina remaining the only one to muster any challenge. But even her performance constituted too little too late. The Ethiopians were just preparing their charge to the top of the rostrum. Meanwhile the men's shot put competition was one of the great competitions in the Olympic Games in Athens -- all the more so since it was held in ancient Olympia. Indeed, there cannot have been a better contest in these games. Yuri Belonog of Ukraine beat Adam Nelson of the United States on the countback -- in other words, his second best put was better than Nelson's after they both threw 21.16 metres. Nelson was determined to make amends, and opened with a season's best of 21.73 metres, to lead after the first round. His rowdy celebrations must have put off his opponents, because they couldn't even get close to him. Thus, after so many silver medals -- two Olympic, one outdoor, one indoor -- the shortest man in the field had finally hit the mother lode. The men's 100 metre race provided thrilling entertainment when Justin Gatlin of the US took centre-stage. As the 22-year old pulled level in mid-race with early leader Leonard Scott, he let out a roar at the top of his voice, adding to the noise of the nearly full-capacity crowd in the stadium. "I just knew then that it was my race," Gatlin said. "No one would be able to match my stride." As Scott faded, Gatlin got ahead of all his rivals to clock a season's best at 9.88 seconds, with nearly two clear metres before the fast- finishing Michael Frater and defending champion Kim Collins lunged for the line. Both were given the same time -- 10.05 seconds -- with the Jamaican taking silver and Collins taking bronze, making it the biggest winning margin in the men's 100 metres yet seen at the World Championships. It even constituted a record over Carl Lewis' legendary level of dominance in 1983 when the first championships were staged on the same track. Lithuanian giant Virgilijus Alekna claimed the gold medal at the discus throw event. After seeing an early lead vanish at the hands of Estonia's Gerd Kanter midway through the contest, Alekna stepped into the ring for the competition's final attempt and threw a spectacular record of 70.17 metres. It was the best-ever throw in a world meeting, surpassing the 69.89 with which he won in Athens last year. And while the Estonian took the silver, the battle for the bronze was controlled early by Michael Mllenbeck from Germany, who presaged his stake to a medal by opening with a long foul near the 65-metre line. Another durable athlete was the Russian race walker who set a world record at the 20- kilometre road walk to regain her status as world champion. The 34-year-old Ivanova clocked one hour, 25 minutes and 41 seconds, bettering Yan Wang's 1:26:22 from 2001, and so will claim a $100,000 record bonus. The women's triple jump offered up a potential new world star in Trecia Smith, whose 15.11 metres effort matched the best in the world this year. Last year she finished fourth in Athens, despite jumping more than 15 metres. This time round she was the only one to do so and so she finally achieved the gold. The minor medals went to a 20-year-old Cuban, Yargelis Savigne, who produced four personal bests in her series, including the silver- medal winning 14.82 metres, and to Russia's Anna Pyatykh, who took the bronze, with a best of 14.78 in the last round. And then there was the conclusion to an absolutely thrilling heptathlon, in which Eunice Barber, the 1999 world champion, took on Carolina Kluft. The two all-rounders had been but two points apart, and going into the last event -- the 800-metres -- were separated by a mere 18 points, equivalent to just a two-second gap on the track. Barber needed to beat the younger Swede, but the defending champion set sail for home, overtaking the Frenchwoman down the home straight to clock a personal best time and score 6887 to Barber's 6824 -- not best scores for either woman, but certainly their best competitive performances which enchanted the appreciative crowds for two days and nights. "What a wonderful competition and what a fantastic crowd," said Kluft, who has now won two world titles outdoors, one world indoor gold, as well as Olympic and European titles. She is still only 22 years old. The race for the bronze medal turned out to be one between Margaret Simpson, whose javelin throw had propelled her into third place, and Austra Skujyte of Lithuania, leaving the United Kingdom's Kelly Sotherton in need of something of a miracle if she was to repeat her bronze medal from last year's Olympic Games. Simpson knew when she crossed the line that the bronze medal was hers -- the 864 points she had scored in the 800-metre race landed her a total of 6,375 -- just 15 better than Skujyte and 50 more than the exhausted Sotherton. On the other hand, the Egyptians put up a poor performance at the championships. Out of the 44 African and 14 Arab participating countries, Egypt only participated with one athlete. Days before the event began, the Egyptian Federation decided to send only one athlete -- Mohsen El-Anany, who took part in the hammer throw. Omar El-Ghazaly, the world junior discus thrower, was expected to join the hammer thrower, but was sidelined in the last days leading up to the competition. Unfortunately, El-Anany left the championships early when he failed to pass the qualification stages. The qualifying record to the final stage was set at 77.50. The best 12 of the 30 participants would qualify to the finals. El-Anany's personal best record was 71.71 meters. In the qualifications, the 20-year-old Egyptian threw 71.78 metres in his first attempt, failed in the second and scored 68.95 in his third and last attempt.
