After that last lap I think he can!
After that last lap I think he can!
no way he can close like dude from Bahrain!!
He can close like a guy name Bernard Lagat who is decent
Yes, he can!
Of course he cannot close like Kemal. Lagat was tired after
3*1500m. More taxing than the 10K a week ago.
Didn’t Kenenisa beat Lagat in the 1500 few weeks ago? Like Kenenisa said in his interview a couple of days ago he is waiting for anyone to beat him.
Bekele’s greatness hidden in Bolt’s shadow
By Christopher Clarey, New York Times | August 19, 2009
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kenenisa Bekele (left) and Usain Bolt (AP)
BERLIN — It is the age of Usain Bolt in track and field, as Bolt reminds us by showing off before and after he blows away world records and fields of fast, muscular men. But there is a more subtle message and athlete equally worthy of our attention at these world championships.
“What more can I do?” Kenenisa Bekele asked on Wednesday.
On the track, Bolt and Bekele, — Jamaica’s finest and Ethiopia’s finest — are polar opposites. Bolt dominates the shortest distance, 100 meters. Bekele dominates the longest, 10,000. Bolt is tall and wired for self-amusement. Bekele is small, not muscular and, despite some recent attempts to summon his inner showman, comfortable keeping his thoughts to himself.
But they are both on historic romps, racking up Olympic and world championship gold medals and thwarting inspired opposition. Bolt did it to Tyson Gay in the 100 meters on Sunday and Bekele did it to Zersenay Tadese in the 10,000 on Monday when Tadese took the only tactically sound option available and tried to wear out Bekele before the final lap.
Bekele, smooth to the point of hypnotic, continued to glide comfortably along on Tadese’s heels, brutally fast lap after brutally fast lap. And when it was time for the last lap, the 25th, the Ethiopian accelerated on command to win his fourth consecutive world championship in the 10,000.
“When he kicks like that, there’s nothing you can do,” Tadese said.
Many athletes hit the finish and shut down, having timed their effort and measured their reserves to the meter. But Bekele looked capable of continuing to run if some mischievous soul had extended the finish line. It is his hallmark, apparent when I first saw him run and win the world cross country championships on a converted horse racing track in Dublin in 2002.
“The man has a special talent for someone so young,” said Wilberforce Talel, one of the Kenyans whom Bekele beat that weekend.
More than seven years later, Bekele, who is still only 27, has not squandered that talent. He has never lost at 10,000 meters and holds world records in the 5,000 and the 10,000 that once belonged to his Ethiopian measuring stick, Haile Gebrselassie. In a sign of his versatility, Bekele has won 11 individual gold medals at the world cross country championships, which matter to Ethiopians.
Like Bolt, Bekele pulled off a rare individual double at last year’s Olympics in Beijing, winning the 5,000 and 10,000. And like Bolt, who cruised comfortably into the 200 final on Wednesday night by winning his semifinal in 20.08 seconds, Bekele will be trying for another double in Berlin. On Wednesday he confirmed that he will try to become the first man to win the 5,000 and 10,000 at a world championships.
Bekele may make it look easy, but it should not be taken lightly. Consider Tirunesh Dibaba, the Ethiopian woman who doubled in the 5,000 and 10,000 in Beijing and who was unable to start either race here because of a left foot injury.
“The timing is right; it’s a good challenge for me,” Bekele said. “Nobody’s done this, and I like the chance to be the best in history.”
But Bekele and his camp know that even if he pulls off the double, he will not steal much of Bolt’s thunder.
“It’s a pity, because it’s like a Bolt party,” said Bekele’s manager Jos Hermans.
“People like the 100 meters more maybe,” Bekele said. “If you are a successful fast man, you are getting more attention. But I can’t do anything about that. I really don’t know what else I can do.”
Winning the 5,000 on Sunday would help. So would following the Gebrselassie template by enduring, excelling and continuing to test negative. There is more oversight now than in the 1990s when there was no testing for EPO, the performance-boosting drug abused in many endurance sports.
But what separates Bekele, like Gebrselassie, from the pack is not just his medal count. It is his elegant style, which makes you forget just how demanding distance running at this level ought to be.
It has not always been easy for Bekele. In 2005, his fiancee Alem Techale collapsed and died during a training run with Bekele in Ethiopia and Bekele carryied her lifeless body in a vain search for help. Bekele is now married to Ethiopian actress Danawit Gebregziabher.
After his triumph in Beijing, he pushed himself too hard in an attempt to set a 15-kilometer road record, developing a bone bruise in his ankle in November. “It was close to a stress fracture,” Hermens said. “He missed three or four months of proper training.”
But after skipping the world cross-country championships in Jordan, he looks to be back in peak form and may even go after his 5,000 world record of 12 minutes, 37.35 seconds in the one-night meet in Zurich later this month.
He and Gebrselassie, friendly but not friends, represent a continuum. Bekele’s plan is to stay on the track through the 2012 Olympics and then move on to the roads and the marathon, where Gebrselassie now makes his living and where he set the world record of 2:03.59 last year.
“It’s good that he has Haile to compare himself with,” said Hermens, the Dutchman who manages them both.
Their paths overlapped early in Bekele’s career, when he beat Gebrselassie in the 10,000 at the 2003 world championships and in the 2004 Olympics, it is unlikely that they will overlap much on the road.
So Bekele is still looking not just for a challenge but a challenger. “I’m still waiting to see who is beating me?” he said.
For now, fair or unfair, he is losing only to Bolt.
---
B B B Bekele wrote:
After that last lap I think he can!
You must never have raced the 1500 or even the 800. Very different from the 5k. KB is fantastic. He'd also be crushed in the 1500 in a fast or slow race against the top runners. I remember people saying the same about Geb. And he couldn't do it.
KB should try anyway wrote:
You must never have raced the 1500 or even the 800. Very different from the 5k. KB is fantastic. He'd also be crushed in the 1500 in a fast or slow race against the top runners. I remember people saying the same about Geb. And he couldn't do it.
Geb won a gold medal in 1500m indoors.
KB should try anyway wrote:
You must never have raced the 1500 or even the 800. Very different from the 5k. KB is fantastic. He'd also be crushed in the 1500 in a fast or slow race against the top runners. I remember people saying the same about Geb. And he couldn't do it.
Didnt Geb run a 331 indoors? Geb WAS one of the top 1500m runners. And so is Bekele, he's run 3:32(and won that race) in one of his few outings at that distance.
and what was the competition???
It was the 30000 emebet aida
I was going to make this thread. I think he could, especially if he geared his training towards the 1500 rather than the 5 and 10.
Without question. Aside from El G. or Haile,...there is no one who makes running so fast look so easy. And according to Wikipedia, he ran that 3:32 PR in 2007 at Shanghai. The guy never runs 1500, jumps in one and does that?
Absolutely.
Bekele smoked lagat in his own game last month. THis was the 4th of the 1000000 jack pot. Bekele after securing two golds in 10,000 and 5,000; he would go and collect his prize money after two more races next week and the following week.
He could win but he probably wouldn't win. He certainly can run as fast as the top 1500m runners in a set up race but championship racing is very different. Look at Choge, at 3:29 this year the fastest in the field - that didn't seem to help much. KB is used to kicking with 1, maybe 2 guys for a lap - not 6 or 7. KB is a beast no doubt but it would take a lot of time and effort to re-configure his training for him to be a chmpionship 1500 guy and at cost to his best events.
Proud Texan wrote:
KB should try anyway wrote:You must never have raced the 1500 or even the 800. Very different from the 5k. KB is fantastic. He'd also be crushed in the 1500 in a fast or slow race against the top runners. I remember people saying the same about Geb. And he couldn't do it.
Geb won a gold medal in 1500m indoors.
Ouch. Talk about opening your mouth too soon without knowing all the facts.
How would he have to "re-configure" his training with speed he already has... which either has to be pretty natural, or he already developed it. Which raises the question, what would he have to work on exactly?
Des Linden: "The entire sport" has changed since she first started running Boston.
Am I living in the twilight zone? The Boston Marathon weather was terrible!
Ryan Eiler, 3rd American man at Boston, almost out of nowhere
Matt Choi was drinking beer halfway through the Boston Marathon
2024 College Track & Field Open Coaching Positions Discussion