Athletics at the 2008 Summer Olympics – Women's 5000 metres

The women's 5000 metres at the 2008 Summer Olympics took place on 19–22 August at the Beijing National Stadium.[2]

Women's 5000 metres at the Games of the XXIX Olympiad
Venue	Beijing National Stadium
Dates	19 August 2008 (heats) 22 August 2008 (final)
Competitors	32 from 20 nations
Winning time	15:41.40
Medalists
Tirunesh Dibaba  Ethiopia Meseret Defar[1]  Ethiopia Sylvia Kibet  Kenya

Athletics at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Track events
100 m	men	women
200 m	men	women
400 m	men	women
800 m	men	women
1500 m	men	women
5000 m	men	women
10,000 m	men	women
100 m hurdles		women
110 m hurdles	men
400 m hurdles	men	women
3000 m steeplechase	men	women
4 × 100 m relay	men	women
4 × 400 m relay	men	women
Road events
Marathon	men	women
20 km walk	men	women
50 km walk	men
Field events
Long jump	men	women
Triple jump	men	women
High jump	men	women
Pole vault	men	women
Shot put	men	women
Discus throw	men	women
Javelin throw	men	women
Hammer throw	men	women
Combined events
Heptathlon		women
Decathlon	men

The qualifying standards were 15:09.00 (A standard) and 15:24.00 (B standard).[3]

While strategically this was different, the results were much the same as the 10000 final a week earlier. Elvan Abeylegesse kept took the lead earlier but field did not dissipate behind her, instead Ethiopians, Kenyans and newly crowned steeplechase world record holder Gulnara Samitova-Galkina engulfing each attempt to pull away. Going into the last lap, it was the three Ethiopians and former Ethiopian Abeylegesse at the front, with the Kenyan team and Russian Liliya Shobukhova already trying to catch back up. Tirunesh Dibaba jumped into the lead with the expected chase coming from Meseret Defar, in one of the few head to head battles between these two stars. But Abeylegesse hadn't read the script and refused to get out of the picture. Through the final turn she caught Defar and swung wide into lane 2 as if to speed past Dibaba. She was able to match Dibaba's speed down the final straight but couldn't make up the ground she had lost, Dibaba taking her second gold, Defar holding off the rest of the field to take bronze.

On 29 March 2017, IAAF confirmed that Abeylegesse had tested positive for a banned substance at the 2007 World Championships in Athletics, and that her results from 2007 to 2009, including her Olympic silvers, had been expunged.[4]