Pole vaulter Alysha Newman inches closer to qualifying for Diamond League Final

Alysha Newman placed third in a pole vault competition Friday in Rome to strengthen her hold on a qualifying position for the Diamond League Final next month.

In her first event since becoming Canada’s first-ever Olympic medallist in women’s pole vault, Newman cleared 4.73 metres at the Golden Gala Pietro Mennea meet.

She cleared that bar on her second of three attempts before missing all three tries at 4.83 at Stadio Olimpico. Newman earned Olympic bronze on Aug. 7 after jumping 4.85 at the Stade de Paris in Saint-Denis, France.

With her seventh top-three finish of this outdoor season, the London, Ont., native picked up six valuable points to climb one spot to fourth in the season standings with 18. The top six advance to the Sept. 13 Diamond League Final in Brussels, with the last qualifying competition Sept. 5 in Zurich.

Italy’s Roberta Bruni and Sandi Morris of the United States occupy the final two qualifying positions with 16 points, four more than Katie Moon and six ahead of her American teammate, Emily Grove.

Australian Nina Kennedy, who won Olympic gold in Paris, tops the season standings with 31 points after Friday’s victory with a 4.83 clearance.

Molly Caudery of Great Britain and Switzerland’s Angelica Moser round out the top three in the standings, each with 20 points. Moser was eighth in Friday’s field of nine at 4.43m after clearing 4.80 in the Olympic competition.

Sandi Morris also cleared a season-best 4.83 in Rome but had six missed attempts to Kennedy’s four and finished second.

Ahmed falls short in DL Final pursuit

On the track, Canada’s Moh Ahmed crossed the finish line in under 13 minutes in the men’s 5,000m for the third time in as many races in Rome but a top-two finish remains a challenge.

The 33-year-old crossed the line in 12 minutes 54.90 seconds on a hot and humid night, 68-100ths of a second shy of his season best.

Ahmed, who ran much of the race in the chase pack, made a move and sat in fourth spot with about 1,000 metres remaining. However, he dropped to seventh by the end of the next lap and couldn’t make ground on the Ethiopian trio of Hagos Gebrhiwet (12:51.07), Yomif Kejelcha (12:51.25) and Selemon Barega (12:51.39 season best) that took the top three spots.

“Our tactics is that we Ethiopians work together, we have many good Ethiopian 5K runners and if one of us gets tired, another can help out with the pace,” Gebrhiwet said. “I knew [I wasn’t] alone.

“I trained a lot for my last 300 to 400 metres, for the final kick and this helped me tonight.”

Ahmed has a history of success in Italy. Stadio Olimpico was the site of his first 5,000 race under 13 minutes when he clocked 12:58.16 on June 6, 2019. Before Friday, Ahmed had also clocked sub-13 minutes in his other three races in the country, including a 12:50.12 best in 2021 at Stadio Luigi in Florence.

Ahmed, whose personal best is 12:47.20, attributed his success on Italian soil to being motivated to run well against strong competition, which was on display Friday.

The native of St. Catharines, Ont., arrived in Italy this week confident after setting a national record in the 3,000m event last Sunday at the Silesia Diamond League meet in Chorzow, Poland.

The end to Ahmed’s fourth Olympics ended in dramatic fashion in France when his appeal to be reinstated for the 5,000m final was rejected shortly after he was tripped late in his Aug. 7 heat.

WATCH l Ahmed tripped, knocked out of Olympic 5,000m heat:

Ahmed, who was boxed in for much of the race, had moved off the rail but got tangled with a group of runners and fell about 50 metres from the start of the final lap. Five days earlier, he placed fourth in the 10,000m after sitting first or second with a few laps remaining.

“I don’t know how many more years I have left of this, but it’s what could have been,” Ahmed, who captured a silver medal in the 2021 Olympic 5,000m, told CBC Sports on Wednesday. “The fact I had an opportunity to show what I was capable of is the disappointing aspect.”

The Canadian’s racing season is over as the two points gained from Friday’s race leave him three behind Norway’s Narve Gilje Nordås for the last qualifying spot, with several other athletes between them.