This thread was initially titled, "Bekele is 41 and ran 2:04" but we merged a bunch of Bekele related threads into 1 and did a hybrid title. The others were called, "IT'S BEKELEMANIA!!!!! and "41 year old Kenenisa Bekele is several minutes faster than the fastest American marathoner" and "New Masters WR for Bekele"
Bekele has once again proven that he is the GOAT. People like to call Jakob the GOAT, but Bekele's international career has literally been as long as Jakob's life. Bekele destroyed the fukk out of the field in the World Junior XC race by 33 seconds when Jakob was probably only learning to crawl. Now he has run a time faster then any non African is capable of at 41. 2 master's WRs now. I'm sure he will get another. It has been 4 hard years since his WR in Berlin, but today he is still only 2:38 slower after going out at a pace that would of been considered suicidal and impossible 5 years ago without literally exploding. This would of been a WR 16 years ago, but the opening half of his race today was over a minute faster then the opening half of the WR back then. Also being only 20 seconds back at half way today is not that much. I can't wait to see Bekele run another master's WR next year
Do you honestly think when people are using the contraction "would've" that they're saying "would have?"
Bekele's performance is extremely impressive, but he has a long way to go to before he tops Kipchoge's 50+ record of 2:01:09.
Bekele has once again proven that he is the GOAT. People like to call Jakob the GOAT, but Bekele's international career has literally been as long as Jakob's life. Bekele destroyed the fukk out of the field in the World Junior XC race by 33 seconds when Jakob was probably only learning to crawl. Now he has run a time faster then any non African is capable of at 41. 2 master's WRs now. I'm sure he will get another. It has been 4 hard years since his WR in Berlin, but today he is still only 2:38 slower after going out at a pace that would of been considered suicidal and impossible 5 years ago without literally exploding. This would of been a WR 16 years ago, but the opening half of his race today was over a minute faster then the opening half of the WR back then. Also being only 20 seconds back at half way today is not that much. I can't wait to see Bekele run another master's WR next year
well there you are, what took you so long? Didn't see it live?
In all likelihood, Jakob will never even match 2:04. He's too big, and as we all know, has peaked.
41 isn’t that old for the thon — I think of 28-38 as years where a well trained person can realistically PR. Sara Hall is still at it. Kipchoge is still at it. Bekele is 3 years out of my arbitrary peak range but if you’re Kandie or Cheptegei I don’t think you can be upset if he beats you on a bad day.
Long ago I remember Runner's World getting all excited that Bill Rodgers and Frank Shorter were about to turn 40, and smash all the AGWRs, they did nothing of note. Didn't used to anyone last that long in those days.
During Shorter's brief commentating career, he constantly said you had only a limited number of marathons in you. But many have proven that wrong by now
41 isn’t that old for the thon — I think of 28-38 as years where a well trained person can realistically PR. Sara Hall is still at it. Kipchoge is still at it. Bekele is 3 years out of my arbitrary peak range but if you’re Kandie or Cheptegei I don’t think you can be upset if he beats you on a bad day.
Long ago I remember Runner's World getting all excited that Bill Rodgers and Frank Shorter were about to turn 40, and smash all the AGWRs, they did nothing of note. Didn't used to anyone last that long in those days.
During Shorter's brief commentating career, he constantly said you had only a limited number of marathons in you. But many have proven that wrong by now
Shorter was never the same after 1976 , too many injuries . Rodgers could have run better but he did stuff like running marathons two weeks apart for the money .
I bet Kipchoge will still be running 2:01-02 in 2 years, so Kipchoge still the GOAT Marathon runner.
I think Bekele will keep the flats on as long as Kipchoge is racing. There is no love lost between the two. Great rivalry.
Is there really personal animus between the two? Great champions are just damn competitive, but by the end of their careers there’s usually a lot of mutual respect and admiration. Not sure if you are a baseball fan, but I was at an event attended by Pedro Martinez and Derek Jeter, and at the close of their careers, they seemed to really like and respect each other.
I think Bekele will keep the flats on as long as Kipchoge is racing. There is no love lost between the two. Great rivalry.
Is there really personal animus between the two? Great champions are just damn competitive, but by the end of their careers there’s usually a lot of mutual respect and admiration. Not sure if you are a baseball fan, but I was at an event attended by Pedro Martinez and Derek Jeter, and at the close of their careers, they seemed to really like and respect each other.
I don't think there is personal animus, but there is a rivalry, both from a national perspective and from the individual glory perspective. I should have worded my earlier post better.
Long ago I remember Runner's World getting all excited that Bill Rodgers and Frank Shorter were about to turn 40, and smash all the AGWRs, they did nothing of note. Didn't used to anyone last that long in those days.
During Shorter's brief commentating career, he constantly said you had only a limited number of marathons in you. But many have proven that wrong by now
What about Yuki Kawuchi? He runs like 10-12 marathons a year!
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