KOBE, Japan — Tejitu Daba Chalchissa and Dejenee Regasa Mootumaa led Bahrain to a sweep of the 5,000-meter races at the Asian Athletics Championships here today.
The Ethiopian-born Chalchissa won the women’s race in a championship-record time of 15 minutes, 22.48 seconds. Japan filled the next two places, Hitomi Niiya crossing in 15:34.19 and Yuriko Kobayashi in 15:42.59.
The 19-year-old Chalchissa has now qualified for the Aug.27-Sept.4 world championships in Daegu, South Korea.
“It’s an important win for me,” Chalchissa said. “This was a good competition and it will give me a lot of confidence.”
Mootumaa, also born in Ethiopia, pulled away from Japanese runner Yuki Sato and teammate Alemu Bekele Gebre in the last 100 meters of the men’s race to complete the double for Bahrain with a time of 13:39.71, also a championship record.
Sato took second in 13:40.78 and Gebre was next in 13:41.93.
10,000m
Bahrain also won both the men’s and women’s 10,000 races on the opening day of the meet. Mahboob Ali Hassan (Kenyan-born) finished first followed by another Ethiopian-born athlete Bilsuma Shugi Gelasa.
It was a distance double for Bahrain as Shitaye Eshete Habtegebrel, a 21-year-old Bahraini of Ethiopian origin, outsmarted the Asian Games champion from India, Preeja Sreedharan, in the women’s 10,000m.
Bahrain currently seats second behind China  in medal counts with 5 gold, 2 bronze and 2 silver.
There is a danger of athletic drain if bahrain is harvesting the fruits of ethiopian labour by taking athletes that have been trained and groomed by ethiopian clubs for a long time. I aslo agree with the comments above the glory is artificial for Bahrain. Bernand Lagat run for Kenya before. He then changed vest and started running for the USA. It did not make sense, at least for me. Some ethiopian athletics coaches are well known to act as liason between athletes and foreign countries. They scout for talented athletes and facilitate their travel to these foreign coutries. Otherwise there is no way in which Bahrain suddenly comes up with all these athletes. I am also appaled by the attitude of some ethiopian athletics coaches. They are used to taking advantage of already scouted and talented athletes by virtue of being national coaches. when they loose their status as national coaches(for example tolosa and earlier dr. yilma and now dr. woldemeskel), they threan to go abroad, which also implies that they will make athletes desert their country. This is very bad. If they are serious professional coaches, they should train athletes in clubs and produce successful athletes and travel with them. For example when i was studying in england at loughborough university, there was a famous coach named George gandhi. He was a real guru of athletics (nick named Guru gahndi). He produced successful athletes like sebastain coe(olympic gold 800, 1500m), david morecroft(world record 5000m), jack buckner(european champion and world bronze 5000m), steve backley (javelin world record holder) and others. He is a university professor and individually produces athletes, nurtures them and does not take the fruits of other coaches.
this athletics result give satisfaction for Bahrain citizens? I think the result doesn’t show country’s progress but it show their desire for the trophy.
I can understand, why our athletes (well formerly) and Kenyans running for Bahrain because most of them know, they don’t have a chance to represent their countries because the quality we have. The thing that amazes me is how can Bahrain be proud of their success, they are not from there and they have no affiliation to Bahrain. I mean it’s like us paying Brazilians and Argentineans to represent us in football. I would honestly be embraced if that happened, even if we achieve something meaningful