Bekele--speak for yourself.

Dude, just shut up...

Lighten up, Francis.

Umm, he is speaking for himself.

white lightning is fast surpassing ventolin as most annoying poster on letsrun. and that's not easy to do.

He makes what he deserves

same money as the

back up goaltender for the Phenoix Coyetes

ha ha

Ritz will make more this year

ha ha

lifes a bitch

WHAT! A professional athlete in the sport just for $$? NO WAY!

stay with being a "i'm smarter than thou" letsrun idiot, and leave being articulate to someone else.

What & let an idiot like you speak for him?

Can you speak any other language? Articulate. Articulate my arse; it probably took you half an hour to type those 3 sentences. Then another 5 mins to spell check my words, you twat.

I'm watching England play football (yes. the one you play with you foot). Every one of those England players is on £50k + per week. They have not won anything and never will!

So compared to them he is paid poorly.

Next time you speak for him use quotation marks, he said money was a motivation - do you go to work for nothing? Why should he, perhaps he is actually a bit more bright than you are. Maybe not so difficult!

Like me you are not good enough at running to make a living out of it, just get used to it & stop projecting you own inadequacies onto someone else. Loser

You forgot to end your post with a period. Did you skip a lot of class when you were younger?

White Lightning wrote:

Bekele obviously doesn't speak for all runners

Nor was he trying to. Not too bright, are you?

And fgfg wants to f*** every "great white hope" distance runner in the arse.

fgfg wrote:

Ritz will make more this year

ha ha

lifes a bitch

I did end my post with a period.

I'm surprised that nobody else was rubbed the wrong way by his quote: "Without money, sport does not mean anything to those who win the races."

This is a general statement where he purports to speak for all "those who win the races." Having won a couple myself, I can say that he is full of b.s., and I hate it when people "speak for me".

Wow, maybe I do need to lighten up, as one poster said. If really nobody else is bothered by something like this, it might be cause for me to examine myself instead of Bekele's quote.

On the other hand, maybe the most self-examination you respondents have ever performed was done with a flashlight in your mom's basement. In any case I have no more free time to contribute to these boards, so much to the relief of some, I'm out.

i agree that i was quite put off by bekele talking about the only reason for sport is the money. obviously the money is important to him cuz running is his job, and money is certainly a big motivator for athletes (or anyone). but to say that without money winning races means nothing is kind of ridiculous. whatever happened to the love of the game, the thrill of competition, and the pride of winning? apparently money took over from those things...

White Lightning wrote:

Bekele obviously doesn't speak for all runners when he says that without money there is no reason to run.

To make such a blanket statement reveals him to be either none too bright, careless in his use of language, or a bit of both.

Kenenisa--stick to running and leave the speaking to the articulate.

The 1st two words of his quote (and I'll capitalize this for emphasis) are...

"FOR ME,..."

Anyone who reads that and thinks he speaks for all runners is just plain dumb.

Plus, if you think that any runner competing in one of the Golden League meets isn't there for a crack at the $1 Mil, you're kidding yourself

I think its another great reason for America to separate itself from the international distance field.

Actually, the "For me..." refers only to the first sentence of his quote, not the sentence that White Lightning excerpted.

Whole quote: ""For me, money is an ingredient that makes things interesting. Without salt, you can not consume food properly. Without money, sport does not mean anything to those who win the races. It is very important."

I'm on White Lightning's side, although I wonder if Bekele is fluent enough in English to allow such careful dissection of what he says.

Bekele's attitude is the crucible in which drug cheats are born. I consider his statement alone to be sufficient cause to suspect strongly that he is doped.

For such a small winner, he seems to be a really big loser.

Why do we continue to hope for anything else from such athletes?

That's not bekele talking. It's jos hermans. It wouldn't surprise me if jos hermans is spoon feeding him ideas and what to say.

He is speaking for himself, so I don't see what the problem is.