3+1 Euro qualifiers at German 10.000 Championships

May 2, 2010

Sabrina Mockenhaupt and Christian Glatting took the titles in the German 10.000m Track Championships in Ohrdruf. With Filmon Ghirmai and Musa Roba-Kinkal, two more athletes cracked the qualification time for the European Championships in Barcelona this year.

mens race:
Christoph Lohse was set as a pacemaker and did a good job, leading a big pack through 3.000m in 8:39min. At this point the lead pack was already down to seven (Glatting, Roba-Kinkal, Ghirmai, Hallmann, Zelalem, Pflieger and Dutch runner Stitzinger). Just after 8K, Musa Roba-Kinkal injected a big move, that was only covered by Christian Glatting and Filmon Ghirmai. The split for 8K was far too slow for the qualification time for the European Championships (28:45 for Germans) and most coaches already thought the game would be over. However, the trio ran a phenomenal last 4 rounds, covered the last kilometer just outside 2:40min and in the last round Christian Glatting (28:40,18min) made the decisive move with 300 meters to go. Steeple specialist Filmon Ghirmai (28:41,36min) passed Musa Roba-Kinkal (28:41,90min) on the home stretch to get the silver. Roba-Kinkal also got a title as he is still U23 and won this category. Altogether eight Germans (including three U23-juniors) plus two foreigners ran sub-30min.

Now it seems there will be a good battle for the Barcelona places in the German team. Sebastian Hallmann, who took 4th in 29:09 in the race, can also run the 28:45 standard and of course the reigning European Champion Jan Fitschen, who canceled the race due to a flu, is also in the game after some good weeks of training.

womens race:
As expected Sabrina Mockenhaupt won her 26th German Championships in a solo-effort. With her time of 32:10,31min she was well below the qualification time of 32:25,00min. Second place went to Simret Restle (33:06,84min), who profited from running with Swiss athlete Martina Strähl (33:11,21min). Third place in the German Championships went to Ingalena Heuck (33:30,25min), who just won the German Halfmarathon Championships two weeks ago. The title in the U23-category was taken by Christina Kröckert (34:07,43 min).

Results were already published earlier.

Victory ceremony for the women.

Glatting (100), Roba-Kinkal (99), Ghirmai (109) and Hallmann (22) with around 700m to go. Friedrich (18) and Schuff (76) are lapped.

after the mens race