Dubai: The UAE duo of Betlhem Desalegn and Alia Saeed Mohammad are targeting an improvement in pace over the next couple of months as they eye glory on the international stage.
Desalegn won two gold in the 1,500m and 5,000m while teammate Alia Saeed took gold in the 10,000m and silver in the 5,000m as the UAE registered their best-ever finish with a sixth place in the medals table at the 21st Asian Athletics Championships in Wuhan, China earlier this week.
The two athletes made a brief stopover in Dubai on Thursday where they were felicitated by officials from the General Authority of Youth and Sports Welfare (GAYSW) and UAE Athletics Federation (UAE AF). The two athletes are scheduled to depart to their training camp base in Barcelona on Friday.
Boosted by these continental performances, the two athletes are now looking at the bigger stage with next year’s Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games their final destination towards glory. “Our time is now. Both of us have been injury free for the past few months and this has given us a good momentum going into a busy season. The idea now is to just go as fast as possible and keep on improving on the times so that we are in our best shape by the time we reach Beijing,” Desalegn told Gulf News.
Despite both athletes battling through Achilles heel injuries last season, Alia went on to win gold at the Incheon Asian Games. However, the transition period thereafter helped as the duo started off with gold medals in their events at the Arab Athletics Championships in Bahrain last month.
However, the UAE athletes had to cope with the untimely departure of former world champion and coach Abdi Bile, who took up employment with neighbouring Qatar from the beginning of this year. The UAE AF moved swiftly and recruited Moroccan Younis Ilheri as travelling physiotherapist.
“What is more important to us is that we feel a sense of relief to train every day without any injuries. So from now on, the focus is very much to run as fast as we can so that we have strong times by the start of the IAAF World Championships in Beijing [August 22-30],” Desalegn said.
Alia was also eyeing a gradual progression in her timings. “One of the best ways to achieve this is to participate in as many Diamond Meetings in the next few weeks so that we are primed for the World Championships in Beijing,” Alia said.
“It would be nice to get an opportunity to run in Lausanne [Athletissima Diamond League Meeting on July 9], Monaco [Herculis Diamond League Meeting on July 17] and Stockholm [DN Galan Stockholm Diamond League Meeting on July 30] so that we are ready in the best possible manner,” she insisted.
Alia timed 31:52.29 in the 10,000m in Wuhan, slightly slower than her best-ever time of 31.51.86 at the Incheon Asian Games. “The goal now is to go fast. In Wuhan, I broke away after 10 laps and then the race got very lonely as there was no one challenging me to a faster time. I have set my sights on having quick times and maybe I can go below 30 minutes by the time we approach the Olympics next year,” Alia said.
