Zara Ilieva finishes sixth in the 3,000-meter race at the Youth Olympic Games

Zara Ilieva finished sixth in the 3,000-meter race at the
Youth Olympic Games in Dakar. The 16-year-old Bulgarian finished in
10:07.71 minutes in the hot weather in the Senegalese capital. Ilieva led
the field until the fourth lap, when she was overtaken by three
African competitors.

Faith Rono (Kenya) became the champion in the event with a time of 9:15.47 minutes,
followed by Yordanos Tsigab (Ethiopia) in 9:15.71 and Karen Chelimo (Uganda) in
9:32.41 minutes.

“Sixth place is very good for such a major competition. I am certainly not
happy with the result, but I am not disappointed because I gave everything I
had. It was very hot; I have never experienced such intense heat.
This motivates me even more to train, to run even
faster next year, and to compete alongside such good athletes, who are so fast. I am very
happy to be here and I will certainly continue to develop, to
train more and achieve better results in the future,” Ilieva said.

“I decided to take the lead during the race because we started very slowly and
I thought that if we continued like that for the entire race and it came down to a final sprint,
I would probably finish last. In recent days I had been more tired than
usual, simply because it is very hot. I feel good now. During the
race I felt more tired than usual. I could feel the pace well,
but I simply could not increase it. But there will certainly be
better races than this one, and I am satisfied,” the athlete concluded.