Athletics: Ethiopia Unearth Two More Gems in Sileshi Sihine and Tirunesh Dibaba

Ethiopia, which has already produced some of the greatest distance runners in history, appears to have unearthed another couple of gems in Sileshi Sihine and Tirunesh Dibaba based on the evidence seen at Newcastle on Saturday.

They won their respective races in the Great North Cross-country race and claimed some eye-catching scalps on the way.

In the men's race there was the sight of Paul Tergat trailing in the wake of Sihine, while in the women's Dibaba beat her cousin Derartu Tulu, who finished fifth.

Dibaba has already started her medal collection, winning the 5,000m title at the world championships in Paris last August despite having only just turned 18.

On a muddy 6.3 kilometre course in Newcastle's Exhibition Park, she glided effortlessly away in the final 300 metres from Elva Abeylegesse, an Ethiopian-born Turk who had pushed Paula Radcliffe hard in the European Cross-country Championships in Edinburgh last month. In the absence of the resting Radcliffe, Bristol's Jo Pavey was the top-placed Briton in sixth.

"We train together in Addis Ababa," said Tulu of Dibaba. "She will be a bigger star than me." That is some prophecy considering what Tulu has achieved: one world and two Olympic 10,000m golds, three world cross-country titles and a first place in the London Marathon in 2001 .

It was Tulu's success at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics that fuelled Dibaba's ambitions. "That is when it really hit me," said Dibaba, who was only seven at the time.

Even then her international career started almost by accident. "I came to Addis in 2000 to live with my sister Ejigayehu and go to school," Dibaba explained. "But I missed the high school registration deadline by six days and I was told I would not be able to enrol in school."

So rather than go home to Arsi she joined the prison athletics club. Within a year she was representing her country and now appears to be on the road to greatness.

"I did not mean for things to happen this way and many people told me I was too young for this," said Dibaba. "But I guess things turned out rather well."

For the 20-year-old Sihine, his inspiration was Haile Gebrselassie. "Whenever I saw him win races, I would feel like standing up and running," he said. Two years ago he got the opportunity to train with Gebrselassie, and in Paris last August won the bronze medal in the 10,000m as the Ethiopians completed a clean sweep with Kenenisa Bekele first and Gebrselassie second.

Sihine will be hoping it is a portent that the winner of this race for the last two years has been Bekele.

Sihine and Eliud Kipchoge quickly turned the race into a personal duel. And it was one that Sihine won over the 19-year-old Kenyan, who was the surprise winner of the 5,000m in Paris, when he accelerated away on the final hill of the 8.6km course to win by six seconds.

He clearly impressed Tergat, the Kenyan winner of a record five consecutive world cross- country titles and the world record holder for the marathon.

"The way he went off really caught me by surprise and I was never able to regain contact," said Tergat.

"I expected the pair of youngsters to be my major rivals, and they showed what massive potential they have for the future."