coach35 wrote:
Bekele had a very hard time convincing Jos Hermans that he needed to pull out of the Newcastle's 2 miles road race in England because he was exhausted.Hermans only agreed to it after bekele promised him to do his best to make it for the Nimjigen 15K and take out Limo's 15k record.This is how jos herman's treats his runners,for him it is all about his personal glory and making money he only ever gives in to an athletes genuine request when the whole world says it is not right.
That's why Jos Hermans' athletes have failed so often, especially Bekele. Remember how in 2004 Bekele lost the Olympic 5000m to some unknown Moroccan who just came out of nowhere? And there are so many other losses in Bekele's career that can't be attributed to crippling heat or the death of a fiancee--too many to name. And while many will celebrate Bekele's world records, it's so obvious to any observer that he could have broken 12:30 and 26:00. When you're Bubka maybe it's better to break a WR by just a slight margin but we all know that Bekele was more capable than just 12:37 or 26:17. Almost certainly due to Hermans' greed.
Coach35 is right. Some may wrongly say this incident was completely isolated and occurred in the least important part of the preseason well before the least important winter and summer racing seasons (after the Olympic year). However, these naive idiots don't realize that Nijmegen is far more important the Olympics. I remember reading an interview with Ron Clarke where he laments that his Olympic failures paled in comparison to his Nijmegen failures. Those were the ones that really ate at Clarke's soul, as Bekele's recent Nijmegen humiliation surely does now.
If only someone as intelligent Coach35 could coach Bekele, we might see him and Hermans' other athletes having some real success.