Bekele officially named to Ethiopia marathon team

Tola should have been in for sure after NYC last year. Dropping from London helped Kenenisa - but screws him.

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=915102920627747&set=pcb.915102947294411

Would it have been much better if he stayed in, prolonged his recovery timeline due to bonkage, and lost to KB by 3-4 mins anyway?

Here are the teams announced by the Ethiopian Athletics Federation:

Men
Sisay Lemma, Deresa Geleta, Kenenisa Bekele
Alternates: Tamirat Tola, Mohammed Esa

Women
Tigst Assefa, Amane Beriso, Megertu Alemu
Alternates: Gotytom Gebreslase, Buze Diriba

Gotta feel for Tola. 2:04 course record but not on the team after a DNF in London in April.

Nice should be a compelling olympic marathon we need some inside knowledge on who to gamble on. Ugandans do well in coming out of nowhere. Japan is a notable but there will be a few sauced up athletes that inevitably are more suited to take the gold by surprise I'd imagine.

Hope this time is the real deal. We can never be sure the man’s running until he actually DNFs.

On the women’s side I agree with Megertu over Gebresilase, Alemu has been podiuming in majors in the last few years. On the men’s side I’m stoked that they’ve included Bekele but Deresa Geleta over the reigning New York champion and former world champion Tamirat Tola? Seriously? Yes, Geleta won the Seville marathon and has won a few marathons in the past few years but he has never even competed in a major marathon let alone podium in one. Very interesting choice. I’m predicting that he will end up dropping out just like other questionable Ethiopian choices in the marathon in the past Olympics and world championships. The only explainination would be if Tola is injured?

Tola deserves to be penalized for using the World Championships marathon last year as a training run to get ready for New York weeks later!!

Your thread title gets a 0/10. I hope one of the mods does us all a favor and rewrites it in English.

Here's a link for everyone:

sports.yahoo.com

Kenenisa Bekele named to first Ethiopia Olympic team in 12 years

Kenenisa Bekele will become the oldest Ethiopian Olympian in history.

Open link

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Bekele v. Kipchoge 2024. I hope this is everything we ever dreamed of.

Tola himself dropped out last year at Worlds. Miraculously he ran great in New York. He dropped in London once time/place bonuses were out of reach. I can understand Ethiopia’s reluctance to trust that if the going gets tough he will gut it out and potentially miss out on a big appearance fee in New York. Not saying Geleta is going to run great, but at least he has less on the line.

It's awesome to see Megertu Alemu named to the team. She's been one of the most consistent marathoners this cycle; London was the first time she finished off the podium since 2021 and she still ran 2:16!

Bekele will be so stoked for this... Wait and see.

Can anybody explain the Buze Diriba reserve selection? Seems to make 0 sense to me and to be the dumbest east african marathon selection since Wesley Korir 2016.

YES!!! Hopefully for real, I'm optimistic this time as news sites are reporting it but given how long the announcement took it seems for real this time. Excited to see him in the Olympics again even if he DNFs, but he seemed to hit a new stride this past year so hopefully he knocks it out of the park. Always great to see him keep it going, this is one legendary career that refuses to die. Didn't think I'd see the 2004 Olympic 10000m champ in the 2024 Olympics but here we are, and I'm already getting hyped for it!

The source cited in the first post literally is the official facebook account of the Ethiopian Athletics Federation, it think you can trust this one lol

I really think Ethiopia messed up not naming him to the team in 2021 for Toyko. Not sure where he was at in 2016 as he really doesn't have any results there until Berlin so I can't fault them for skipping that one. But in 2021, man, ALL THREE of them DNF'd. I know they were all three pretty qualified at that point, but just give the GOAT his spot as long as he wants it the same way all-timers in other sports keep racking up all-pro 1st teams well past their primes.

My snark notwithstanding, I very much want him to smash the Olympic marathon beyond anyone’s expectations!

The man is simultaneously the GOAT and dark horse.

This news made my day. The Dream lives on one more day.

Hopefully he can go all in on his training.

This is a chance for all the old guys here to re-live some awesomeness. El G, Sihine, Tedese, Hall, Geb….all long gone. But not Kenny B. He needs revenge from Kipchoge after 2003 WC 5k.