RIO DE JANEIRO — Olympic athletics got off to an astonishing start Friday when Ethiopia's Almaz Ayana smashed a 23-year-old world record to win the greatest-ever women's 10,000 meters and then had to deny suggestions that her performance was fuelled by drugs.
The world 5,000m champion, running only her second 10,000m, ripped the field apart to finish in 29 minutes 17.45 seconds, an incredible 14 seconds inside the previously untouchable 29:31.78 set by China's Wang Junxia in 1993.
Kenya's world 10,000m champion Vivian Cheruiyot took silver and though she was far behind, her time of 29:32.53 was still the third-fastest ever run. Ethiopian Tirunesh Dibaba, the double defending Olympic champion, took bronze.
No woman had gone under 30 minutes in the last seven years, but the first four all did Friday, and even though the field was spread all over the track, the first 13 finishers ran the best time of their lives, including five national records.
After a bleak year of doping and corruption controversies it should have been an uplifting start to 10 days of athletics but, such was the magnitude of victory, Ayala was immediately forced to deny using performance-enhancing drugs.
"My doping is my training, my doping is God. I am crystal clear," she said through an interpreter.
Sarah Lahti, who finished 12th in a Swedish record having taken 26 seconds off her own best, questioned Ayala's performance while marathon world record holder Paula Radcliffe said in commentary for the BBC: "I'm not sure that I can understand that.
"When I saw the world record set in 1993, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. And Ayana has absolutely blitzed that time."
Doping remained on the agenda away from the track too as Bulgarian Silvia Danekova's positive test for EPO was confirmed.
The 33-year-old, who was due to compete in the women's 3000m steeplechase Monday, denied taking any drugs and blamed her test on her country's links with Russia.
"I feel robbed emotionally," she said.
The disappointing aspect of the opening morning's action was the sparse crowd to witness the fireworks.
There were only a scattering of fans to see the opening events, men's discus qualifying and heptathlon hurdles, though the numbers swelled in time for the 10,000m.
Games spokesman Mario Andrada said that 58 percent of tickets had been sold for the session, though only around 25 percent of seats looked occupied.
Briton Jess Ennis-Hill got off to a good start in the defense of her heptathlon title with an impressive 12.84 seconds 100m hurdles on a wet track — blue for the first time at the Olympics.
However, she was outshone by compatriot Katerina Johnson-Thompson, who cleared a British high jump record of 1.98 meters to lead after two events.
With Dibaba missing out in the 10,000m, the way is now clear for Valerie Adams to become the first woman to win three successive athletics golds and she needed only one throw of 19.74 to lead the qualifiers for the shot put final scheduled for later Friday.
The other gold medal up for grabs on day one is in the men's 20km walk.
David Rudisha of Kenya cruised into the men's 800m semifinals.
Rudisha fired out a warning to rivals on the track at the Olympic Stadium, pulling away at 600m to clock the fastest qualifying time of 1min 45.09sec and will be joined in the semi-finals by a host of favourites including Djibouti's Ayanleh Souleiman, Bosnian Amel Tuka, Poland's Adam Kszcot and American Boris Berian.
British rowers enjoyed a day of glory at the Olympic rowing regatta, with Helen Glover and Heather Stanning successfully defending their crown in the women's pair and the men's four winning a fifth consecutive gold.
The two victories came in the space of less than half an hour on the Rodrigo de Freitas Lagoon and both crews were pushed hard, with New Zealand claiming silver in the women's pair and Australia settling for second in the men's four.
Glover and Stanning's win extended a five-year unbeaten run over 39 races.
In the lightweight women's double sculls, the Netherlands duo of Ilse Paulis and Maaike Head claimed gold.
France's Pierre Houin and Jeremie Azou hung on to win the men's lightweight double sculls in a very tight finish.
Irish brothers Gary and Paul O'Donovan took silver, becoming the second set of brothers to medal in the rowing after Croatians Martin and Valent Sinkovic's gold in the double sculls Thursday.
Henri Junghaenel secured Germany's second gold medal in rifle shooting in as many days by winning the men's 50m rifle prone event in his Olympic debut.
Kim Jonghyun, 31, of South Korea, won his second Olympic silver with a perfect 10.9 shoot-off with Kirill Grigoryan, a 24-year-old who took the bronze, Russia's first medal in this event.
