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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Wang Junxia

New York Daily News

Track and field

If Michael Johnson wins his race tonight and pulls off an unprecedented double in the 200 and 400 meters, it will indeed be historic.

But it won’t be any more difficult than the double China’s Wang Junxia will be attempting Friday. By the time the Games end, Johnson will have run 2,400 meters for two golds, heats and all. Wang will have gone 30,000.

Wang, the winner of the 1994 Jesse Owens Award as the world’s top international athlete, blazed to victory in the first-ever women’s Olympic 5,000 meters Sunday night, beating one of the best distance fields ever assembled.

Friday night, she’ll try to win the 10,000 against an equally talented group headed by Ethiopia’s defending Olympic champ, Derartu Tulu, and Kenya’s New York Marathon winner, Tegla Loroupe.

She looked fit enough to do it in Sunday’s 5,000, sprinting past Kenya’s Pauline Konga in the final two laps to win in an Olympic record 14:59.90.

“It is great to have the ability that I have,” Wang said. “That I can perform to new heights is very precious.”

If Wang runs anything close to her world 10,000 record of 29:31.78 set in 1993, Friday’s race will be over shortly after it starts. She is the first woman ever to break 30 minutes at that distance, and in her world-record trot she raced the second half of that race in 14:26.09 - 10 seconds faster than the current 5,000-meter world record.

After running a 5,000 heat last Friday and a 10,000 heat the next day, Wang said she conserved energy in Sunday’s 5,000 to be fresh for the 10,000. If that’s the case, look out. “My aim is very clear,” she said. “I want to revive my former glory at the Olympics.”