16 yr old who ran 12:54.19 now moves up and debuts in the marathon!

In all seriousness, I asked my girlfriend how old she thought this guy in the photo was.

http://rodale.typepad.com/.a/6a00e54f86af568833012876b06dd7970c-pi

I even hinted at her with eye contact that he's far younger than he looks. She doesn't know jack about runners lying about their age, so she was just being honest. " Forty?" she says. Now, as letsrunners, we all know that runners can look older than their actual age, so we can throw that guess out the window.

How old do you really think this guy is?

I say 26 or 27.

BTW I think Geb's real age is 41.

Your girlfriend should "Just Say No" to crack because crack is whack. Anyone can find photos of famous individuals or popular athletes on the internet to back-up whatever claim they wish to spread.

Abreham Cherkos Fekele was 15/16 at the time of this photo and he looks like someone in high school:

http://www.iaaf.org/mm/photo/competitions/iaafworldyouth/30435_w400xh600.jpg

I guess the fact that these runners run incredible high mileage and thus have incredibly low body fat including in their face wouldn't allow them to look like non-runners their age! Come on our hero Alan Webb looked the same way in high school.

the dude has a receding hairline - absolutely no way he is 15/16. He might be small and thin but even assuming early hair loss he must be at least 20 in this photo.

Perhaps, occasionally, there are. This is not one of those times. I am very grown up, thank you. I do not need anyone to hold my hand and lie to me and tell me that this man was a child when he ran 12:54.

So, in short, maybe you need to grow up and stop believing in 16 year old sub 13 5k guys, the tooth fairy, and Santa Claus.[/quote]

Ok, sub 13 5k 16 year olds is agreeably ridiculous. But let's be men and leave Santa out of this.

His hairline looks exactly like Alan Webb's did when Webb was in high school. Feleke was a running phenom who probably did incredible (80 to 100) mileage at ages 14 - 18 and thus the great early results.

Huge difference between 18 and 16 as far as physical maturity. And there have been several other people running times similar to Webbs. How many sub 13 16 year olds have their been? Hell how many sub 13:30 guys?

[quoete]InYourDreams wrote:

First I would like to point out that this is not directed to all Letsrun posters. There are some of you that need to wake up or just grow up and act like adults (which most of you are on this website). All African nations don't need to lie about their ages especially Ethiopia.

Occassionally there are phenoms that come out of those countries that actually post such times and at the accurate ages stated.

I guess Alan Webb was actually 23 when he ran 3:53 in high school?

And to the poster who said he trained with the best in the world. Sir in your dreams don't actually count![/quote]

CrackIsWhack wrote:

His hairline looks exactly like Alan Webb's did when Webb was in high school. Feleke was a running phenom who probably did incredible (80 to 100) mileage at ages 14 - 18 and thus the great early results.

80-100 is "incredible" to you? At 14-18?

There is a huge difference between a 14 yr old and an 18yr old, but I was doing 60 mpw at 15 (after 9th grade), 70 during 10th grade, and 75-85 during the summer after 10th grade (age 16) ... and I could not run 60-second laps for more than 2 ... not even THAT far when I was 14 and 15.

Many, many Western runners have run the kind of mileage you talk about when they were in high school and nobody has ever run those kind of times.

Feleke was probably not even running yet when he was 14. Do you expect that a 16-yr-old could run 35 seconds faster at 3k and 55 seconds faster at 5k than EVERY Western 16-yr-old in recorded history?

There is no point in arguing because we will NEVER know the truth, but if there WAS a way to know for certain I would bet a year's salary that he WAS NOT 16 when he ran those times. Somewhere over 20 I would say.

oh my God how do they train those kids in ethiopia.. anybody iknow

Why don't we just cut off one of his fingers and count the rings to finally settle how old he really is?

[quote]InYourDreams wrote:

First I would like to point out that this is not directed to all Letsrun posters. There are some of you that need to wake up or just grow up and act like adults (which most of you are on this website). All African nations don't need to lie about their ages especially Ethiopia.

No, they don't need to lie. But

1. many of them legitimately don't know their own ages, or are clearly lying to themselves to some extent. This is more common than not among ethiopian athletes, and most of them give themselves the benefit of the doubt (and will admit one-on-one that they are doing so)

2. A lot of them just plain lie. I have met many ethiopians who have been living independently as adults for 10 years who still compete in junior competitions.

twig mzungu wrote:

haha looks like a skinny version of leo manzano

Stop laughing, that IS Manzano!!

Crack. That's a good one. You've been locked in your parents' basement since 1987, haven't you ?

"Anyone can find photos of famous individuals or popular athletes on the internet to back-up whatever claim they wish to spread. "

So true. Come to think of it, I have proof that Alan Webb is actually an alien. Just give me a few to search google images. You gotta see this!

asdfasdf and newname

The fact that noone else 16 yrs old have run that time is one of the lamest viewpoints ever on this message board. Before

Roger Bannister noone had broken 4 minutes in the mile,

what about the 7th female who ran 2:07 for 800m- noone that age ever done that,

the family that3 incredible running phenoms which included an 11 yr old female running sub 36 minute road 10ks

now you can add

Abreham C. Feleke who ran 12:54.19 at age 16

**

sykes

Ethiopia is far more advanced than many of you think. That country has plenty of cities with huge buildings, professional, and medical facilities. Yes there have been cases of improper age in some African countries but in actuality that is not a big problem in Ethiopia.

ETHIOPIAN FEDERATION is extremely PROUD to have actually teenagers in Youth and World Jr games and they're very strict on the selection and placement of individuals to those teams- especially in the last 5 years!

What are the 2nd-10th fastest 16 year old times? How many 16 year olds have run with a second or 2 of webbs sophomore time? How many other 16 years don't ever run faster than they did at 15 or 16 who are still training seriously?

correction

*7th grade female who ran 2:07

alan webb 35 in hs and track short

doubtful wrote:

so if no one knows birthdates...howd you know he was 28?

Cut them in half and count the rings.

Sheesh.

victoy wrote:

oh my God how do they train those kids in ethiopia.. anybody iknow

They train like men. As soon as we go back to what this country used to be, we too will run like these other countries. Stop reading the books, run 30 milers at a strong pace, do the long intervals, rest when you need to not when a book tells you so.

Simplicity is the key to brilliance

Bruce Lee

oldmarriedguy wrote:

Umm... heard of the Phil Hersh article that was on the homepage last week? Guess not.

Everyone knows, everything printed in a newspaper is true.