Dibaba Not Looking For 10K Record

She says she wants to focus on the marathon for Rio in 2016.

One of Ethiopia’s greatest track runners, Tirunesh Dibaba, recently sat down for an interview with the IAAF. She was in Barcelona, Spain for that organization’s centenary gala.

Dibaba won the 10,000m gold in August at the Olympic Games.

“I am not leaving the track and at the next World Championships I’ll run a 10,000m,” she told the interviewer. “I will try the marathon, but I will not leave the track completely.”

Despite her success, Dibaba has yet to win the IAAF Athlete of the Year award.

“I was hoping to win after taking the 5000m and 10,000m in Beijing and I went to Monaco confident I would be elected,” she said. “I never understood how after winning two special gold medals that they selected somebody else.”

Surprisingly, Dibaba said she isn’t interested in going after Wang Junxia’s 10,000m world record. “Before I got injured I was hoping and I had the belief I could beat that world record, but after my injury I don’t really think of breaking the record,” she admitted.

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