Garrett Heath wins Great Edinburgh Cross-Country

Is there any video of the junior race?

bexpert wrote:

Bekele was there just to collect a paycheck. He is a marathoner now and trying to be competetive in 4k does not make any sense. He should have gone for 8k.

I believe the meet organizers shifted the elite race from 8k to 4k and made the 8k a minor international contest to try to get away from the East Africans dominating the main event.

Highlights of the junior races: http://runningsplits.blogspot.com/2014/01/2014-great-bupa-edinburgh-cross-country.html

Are they going to post a full replay of the 8K?

What I would say about Bekele's performance is that it is not quite so bad as it at first seems. He has been running over 130 miles per week in training for a 42km race, so is not in form to race over 4km cross country. Also, as Paula remarked, he was not wearing the correct length of spikes. He was visibly struggling on the slippery and boggy surface, and when cornering was being forced to take a line that was far wider than anyone else. He also consistently gained ground on the firmer uphill sections, supporting this view.

mako wrote:

LM wrote:

I'm beginning to think though that Bekele is never going to get anywhere near his old form back. :(

Bekele is in the marathon base phase, it's quite understandable he can't compete with guys like Kiprop on 4K XC

Yes and no.

Bekele was ridiculous at cross country, routinely dominating races; and other runners such as Tergat have had success in XC while being a marathoner.

4k is admittedly short, but at the same time the actual pace itself was not incredibly fast, at only 3:00/k. Now 3:00/k on an XC course obviously isn't 4:50 pace on the track, but it wouldn't be as brutal as being expected to run 10:25 track 4k as far as speed goes.

The bottom line for me is that a 3:34/13:20 guy won this race. Marathon training or not I do not think the 26:17 monster of 04-08 loses to Heath regardless of the conditions given just how much better Bekele is and how assuredly good he was at XC to begin with.

just sayin wrote:

Good win

Wada is levelling the playing field for white guys

Yes, when NOP runners finish 1,2,3,4 in an Olympic and World Champs (don,t laugh, they'e close) than we can finally say it is a level playing field. It's laughable to think clean east Africans were beating clean white runners.