ETHIOPIAN OG MARATHON SELECTION

Jeilaan wrote:

Selection may change after London

this seems to say they are considering the ones mentioned, but they wont make the decision until after london on april 22nd, which seems to mean t. kebede, geb geb and others may still be on the team if they have a great race in their spring marathon.

There is room for that but the message is loud and clear - get fast or get out!

Kebede needs to either win London or finish sub 2:05 to gain entry into that list. I don't think Gebremariam is running London and i am don't know where he intends to qualify.

Winning London will be next to impossible - With Mutai, Kirui,Kipsang and Makau taking part in what will def be a 2:05 - 2:06 pace!

But if he does manage to finish somewhere in the top 4-6, he will def get a look and deservedly so. If he does well, Ath ETH must must must take him to London. Having won a bronze at the Olympic level, he knows what it takes to run a smart race. And with the suicidal pace the Kenyans will promise, you will need to run a smart race to get anywhere close to them

Hope he makes it!

These four guys ran pretty much as a team in Dubai, for all we know they might as well also have shared the prize money among the group, especially ethiopians are know to have a different take on such things.

And Team Ethiopa seems to be abuzz about teambuildning these days, remember back in early January when they even cut Kenenisa Bekele for not showing up at pre-olympic team camp? (Although he was reinstated later, after apologizing).

The Kenyans have had tremendous success with their pre camp team building, especially over the last two World Champs in 2009 and 2011, no wonder the Ethiopians are trying to follow suit.

That said, it's still a bit surprising to cut all those big names, but then again the new generation of Kenyans won ALL the major races last year and when it came down to the last kilometers none of them were even close to victory in even one, so Ethiopa probably decided to gamble on an early generation shift.

Geb Must Go!

Peter Andersson wrote:

The Kenyans have had tremendous success with their pre camp team building, especially over the last two World Champs in 2009 and 2011

I thought the reason for recent Kenyan successes has been reducing or eliminating team camps, and allowing the runners to keep training with their coaches.

Those are two different things, right? They used to try to force their own kenyan head coach(es) on athletes between trials and champs, that failed miserably. Now they get to keep their coaches, just like you say, and a lot of the athletes (not all though, I think) gather between trials and champs for more like psycological team building on the home front.

I think Abshero and Kebede are the two most logical names to put on the Ethiopian team. However, it is important to remember that a time trial with pacers and good weather conditions is quite different from a championship race with no rabbits and hot weather. Several men ran a good race in Dubai, but of the first five in Dubai, only Tola has anything like a marathon pedigree.

Besides Kebede (whom I would have thought to be an automatic choice for Ethiopia's team), I think Lilesa should be given serious consideration. He's shown he can run fast (2:05 at Rotterdam), he's shown he can run well in championship races (World Champs 2011 - where Gebremariam was a DNF), and he's shown he can run well in the heat (Chicago 2010 & Daegu 2011). None of the top five in Dubai has demonstrated that they can perform well in a rabbitless, championship race in the heat. This doesn't mean they can't, merely that all the top finishers from Dubai are unknown entities in this respect. Kebede & Lilesa have both shown they can perform when championships are on the line.

Why do you expect London to be hot? The average for that time of year is between 54-70•F.

Normally the hottest time of the year in London happens during the months of July and August. The average temperature in London in August is 21-22 Centigrade/70-72 Fahrenheit, which is warm weather for a marathon. However, peak temperatures can sometimes reach up to 30 C/90 F in London in August.

It is possible the Olympic marathon race could be run on a relatively cool day, but chances are the weather will be warm, possibly even hot. Running a marathon in 70 degree weather is certainly a different experience from running one in 50 degree weather. Hopefully the athletes will have a cooler day, but marathon selection committees in countries that don't have Olympic Trials to determine team members have to be cognizant of possibilities for warm weather (which in August is more likely than not) and make their selections accordingly.

How come Ejegayehu doesn't run any half marathons or 10km after chicago? She doesn't run a tune up race for london marathon.

Who will lose to Irina Mikitenko?

People need to start challenging Irina Mikitenko. She doesn't even run that fast. 1 time she ran under 2:22:11. The rest of her marathons is slower.

People who will lose to her: Great Britain runners, ruban nadia, ejegayehu inga maria. Not much people will lose to her because there's only 16 elite runners (I don't count Constantina)YOu need at least over 20 elite runners to make a marathon exciting.