BEIJING - Genzebe Dibaba earned her first ever World Outdoor title Tuesday night with a dominating victory in 4:08.09 in front of a roaring crowd at the National Stadium. Dibaba closed in 1:57, unofficially, for her last 800m.

"I worked very hard for the last three years. I am happy to win this gold medal for my country," Dibaba told the IAAF after the race.

"It is great to have such a strong performance. My sister won the gold medal in this stadium at the Olympic Games, so I wanted to share this family experience. I had a lot of confidence in this race because I told myself: I am the record holder plus I trained so hard in the last months. I know everybody in this race and I know everything about my competitors, so I was very confident in the last 400m"

American medal hopefuls Shannon Rowbury and Jenny Simpson led the field through 400m in 1:17, a pedestrian pace for the elite field. "We were going so slow I figured being in the front was a pretty good place to be," Rowbury said. "I wanted to be clear to cover the move when it happened."

At 700m with just two laps to go, Dibaba made her move. 

The World record-holder shot around the outside of the pack and straight to the front. Simpson tried to counter the move, was forced to swing wide and fell victim to Abeba Aregawi stepping on her heel. "I was kind of pushed into the traffic and somebody clipped my heel and I lost my shoe," Simpson said. 

"I was gripping my toes really hard trying to keep my spike on as long as possible."

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With 300m to go, Dibaba was pressing hard with Faith Kipyegon, Dawit Seyaum and Sifan Hassan at her heels. At this point, a medal for Team USA was highly unlikely. Rowbury was two seconds behind in the sixth position and Simpson, presumably falling off because of her shoe, was nearly five seconds behind the leaders. 

Dibaba, with an enormous smile plastered on her face, went on to win in 4:08.09, the slowest winning time for the women’s 1500m at the World Championships. The biggest "wow" factor of the race was Dibaba’s finishing speed. She ran 800m to 1200m in 57.24, the fastest split in history by nearly three seconds. Unofficially, her final 800m of the race was covered in 1:56.9. Even if it was somewhere closer in the 1:57 range, that would put her in the top five in the world this year in the 800m. 

Kipyegon took silver in 4:08.96 and Hassan walked away with bronze in 4:09.34.

Rowbury finished seventh in 4:12.39 and Simpson 11th in 4:16.28.

"I figured it might go from further out and I was preparing myself for it," Rowbury said. "I tried to cover the move when it went but I didn't quite have what the other girls had in them."

Rowbury acknowledged that her 800m personal best has been "lingering around 2:00 for awhile" and that her closing speed is something she has been working on.

Simpson went into more detail about losing her shoe after the race.

"It's so hard to get that aggressive when you don't have a spike on," Simpson commented on responding to Dibaba's ramped up pace.

"If it had been 300 or 200 to go it would have been a different story. But having that long to kind of deal with your foot on the track, I don't know. Maybe I'm going to go back to wearing socks with my spikes," Simpson added. 

Simpson called tonight's race "unlucky" but was optimistic on her chances of beating the same competitors in future races at the Zurich and Brussels Diamond League meetings this summer. 

"I don't think an 800m PB has anything to do with how you can close in a 15 and I've shown that in years, but not just me other people have," Simpson added.