Kenenisa Bekele: how soon will he totally annihilate the distance WR's?

Vipam

RE: Kenenisa Bekele: how soon will he totally annihilate the distance WR's? 2/3/2006 2:00AM - in reply to EthiopiansGoneWild

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Kenenisa Bekele stated he would like to run 3:50 on the 11 lap track which seems like a extraordinary task for a neophyte to the distance. While I do think Kenenisa Bekele could run sub 3:50 in the mile I think it would be feasible to expect that outdoors; however, not on the indoor track where the CR is 3:52. USA Bernard Lagat hopefully didn't miss too much training and will be ready for a great run as well.

Bekele Is Confident He's No Long Shot on Short Track

By FRANK LITSKY
Published: February 3, 2006
At 23, Kenenisa Bekele is almost the youngest in the field. He has never run a race as short as a mile. He has never run or even seen a miniature indoor banked track, 11 laps to the mile, like the one on which he will race tonight in Madison Square Garden.

By all logic, Bekele, an Ethiopian, should be apprehensive about how fast he can run in the Wanamaker Mile, the blue-ribbon event of track and field's blue-ribbon indoor competition, the Millrose Games. Instead, he seems casual.

At a news conference yesterday, he was asked what he knew about the Garden track.

"I heard it is very short," he said through a translator. "The mile is very short for me. It is very new for me. This is a very difficult competition. The race will be very tough. I know that."

Those sounded like built-in excuses, but he had high expectations.

"I will try to run a fast time," Bekele said, "maybe 3:50."

Was he kidding? The Millrose and Garden record is 3:52.87, by Bernard Lagat last year. The 11-lap record is 3:50.6, by Eamonn Coghlan in San Diego in 1981.

Lagat, a three-time winner of the Wanamaker Mile, will run it again tonight. When he was asked how fast he might run it, he said, "Maybe 3:55 or 3:54."

When told about Bekele's prediction, Lagat raised his eyebrows. Impossible, his reaction seemed to say, but Bekele is probably the best runner in the sport, and little seems impossible for him.

At his tender age, Kenenisa Bekele (pronounced ken-eh-NEE-sah BEK-eh-lah) is the world-record holder at 5,000 meters, outdoors and indoors, and the outdoor 10,000 meters. He has won two world championships and one Olympic gold medal in the 10,000. He has won eight world cross-country championships.

He said he was not here to prove anything, but partly to see New York City.

"I'm competing in this competition just for speed," he said. "If I have a good time, if I'm speedy, maybe later in my career I will run the mile and 1,500. Who knows?"

Running on such a small track is an art. The turns are sharp and the straightaways are short, so quick leg turnover is needed and long-legged runners need not apply. At 5-foot-3 and 119 pounds, Bekele seems designed for indoor running. The 5-foot-9 Lagat towered over him when they stood side by side.

Opponents may tower over Bekele in height, but not in accomplishments. His amazing career began when he was 15.

"I was playing football, what you call soccer," he said. "I was very fast, and my schoolteachers said, 'Why aren't you running?' I was watching Haile Gebrselassie and other Ethiopians on television, but I didn't see myself being great like them."

But at 18, he was training with Gebrselassie, a distance superstar. At 21, Bekele ran two 10,000-meter races against Gebrselassie, one in cross country and one on the track, and lost both. But he has since beaten Gebrselassie several times, including at the 2003 world championships and the 2004 Summer Olympics. Gebrselassie is now 32, and although he set an unofficial world record for the half-marathon three weeks ago, he has all but turned over the mantle to his young countryman. Bekele accepts it.

"When I was young, I tried to be big person with my ambition," he said. "I thought God would help me, and here I am."

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