World Athletics

Naser rockets into limelight

Ag AFP

DOHA: Salwa Eid Naser says she “dreams big” eyeing the 400 metres world record but her astonishing winning time of 48.14sec at the World Championships rekindled memories of an era three decades ago dominated by Communist eastern Europe.

The engaging 21-year-old — born Ebelechukwu Agbapuonwu in Nigeria to a Nigerian mother and Bahraini father — pulled off a shock defeat of reigning Olympic champion Shaunae Miller-Uibo on Thursday, who had not lost a race since August 2017. However, it was the time — the third fastest of all time — that took many people’s breath away.

Only those over 40 would recall watching the two women who have run faster than her, world record holder Marita Koch of what was then East Germany, who recorded 47.60sec in 1985, and the former Czechoslovakia’s Jarmila Kratochvilova (47.99sec in 1983).

Theirs was an era when the Cold War was ongoing and the Berlin Wall separated East and West Berlin.

Neither Koch nor Kratochvilova failed a doping test but their countries are known to have operated state-sponsored programmes as athletic supremacy was viewed by their rulers as a weapon in the battle between east and west.

Naser, who switched to Bahrain aged 16, played coy as to whether she considered her time in Doha the fastest clean one in history.

Naser’s victory — which also saw three other finalists record personal bests — may have shocked many but her championship record in the past two years suggested she was a genuine title contender.

A second-place finish at the last world championships in 2017 aged 19 — her idol Allyson Felix and Miller-Uibo were behind her — heralded her talent as she became the youngest ever medallist in the event. Her Asian Games success last year also showed she has extraordinary resilience.

Having run two relay finals at the end of that competition she flew for 14 hours from Jakarta to Brussels and the next day won the 400m Diamond League title.

That sort of determination is a characteristic that US veteran Felix — who won a mixed relay gold earlier in the week as she returned to global competition following the birth of her baby last November — would admire.

Naser believes she and the 33-year-old Felix, whose world gold medal tally of 12 now outstrips that of retired Jamaican legend Usain Bolt, share common ground. “Allyson Felix is my role model as I see similarities,” said Naser.