Antibo again led for the first kilometre in the final, but the temperature
in Barcelona was 12°C hotter than Seoul at 31°C, which put paid to a
lightning fast race. Chelimo was ahead by 4000m and sped up the pace
from 2:49 for the first three kilometres, to 2:44 for the next four, pass-
ing halfway in 13:53.7. Skah, the only athlete with Chelimo after
Abebe was dropped in the 16th lap, took the lead, and slowed down the
pace to a 69.1 lap. A lap later the two caught Skah’s teammate Hammou
Boutayeb, who, instead of moving out of the way of the leaders,
bumped into Chelimo three times and disrupted the Kenyan’s running
rhythm. Skah, a bigger kicker than the Kenyan, outran Chelimo in the
last lap, with a 59.3 lap to the Kenyan’s 60.4, which featured a 26 sec-
ond last 200m. Initially Skah was disqualified, and then reinstated, to
the anger of the crowd at the victory ceremony two days after the race.
World Record: 27:08.23 Arturo Barrios, Mexico, West Berlin, Germany, August 18, 1989
Olympic Record: 27:21.46 Brahim Boutayeb, Morocco Seoul, South Korea, September 26, 1988
Marocco
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