Wanjiru says haile prevented him from running in Berlin

oh how I wish to see Haile Kick Wanjiru's ass in Berlin this year, at the same time setting a new WR!

In this one he says...

“They told me it was not possible for me to get the appearance fee. So my manager advised me to run elsewhere and that is why we went to Chicago,” said Wanjiru.

http://www.nation.co.ke/sports/athletics/-/1100/848108/-/re2qi8z/-/index.html

Slightly different than "prevented from running".

He also appears to claim...

“The Berlin course is ideal to break the record. I do not want to put my hope high with London, which is hilly and has sharp corners,” he said.

I guess that's why the women's record is so slow... if only Paula had run in Berlin, she might have been able to run a fast time.

Wanjiru should quit whining and let his feet talk for him.

Chicago, Amersterdam, London, Berlin, they are all fast courses.

So they won't pay him the same appearance fee as Haile, too bad. Earn your boots.

Earn your boots?

The Olympic Champion wanted to race the World Record holder and they wouldn't let him in.

We don't know the dollar amount offered (if any) or requested.

We know Wanjiru wanted to run.

There were no signs of Geb reaching out to welcome him to run in the Adidas sponsored event.

No argument about Geb trying to get as much money as he can. He is a business man who happens to be in the business of running and he is successful.

X-Runner wrote:

Earn your boots?

The Olympic Champion wanted to race the World Record holder and they wouldn't let him in.

Not bad enough, evidently. No one prevented him from running. They prevented him from earning as much money as he wanted for running.

Wanjiru (or his agent) made the conscious decision not to run in the race. Stop twisting the facts.

misleading. maybe wanjiru prevented kibet and a slew of other top marathoners from getting appearance fees for london. its all relative.

wanjiru will never go down at the greatest. that battle (for my generation) will be between bekele and geb.

maybe if wanjiru add some track or cross credentials (i know he has/had junior 10k record, but no medals)

races have limited appearance fees. pretty hard to afford both haile and wanjiru. The latter could have run for free, since he knew he would beat haile and take his prize money, right?

If you just talk marathon I think Wanjiru could be on his way to the greatest ever.

Wanjiru's appearance fee would have been several times whatever the prize money for first place was.

wanna_watch_Geb wrote:

oh how I wish to see Haile Kick Wanjiru's ass in Berlin this year, at the same time setting a new WR!

Why? Wanjiru is fearless, just watch his Olympic marathon. Geb is fearful, just read the article and pay attention to the races he runs. Geb is great and I was a huge fan of his when he was on the track but I just can't root for him in the marathon. Well, I was rooting for him when he ran London. But that was a long time ago.

Haile IS a ducker. I don't see how anyone could argue otherwise.

Look at his track record.

It's not ducking if he's running the marathons that pay him the most money. It's not up to him to come up with additional hundreds of thousands of dollars for competitors of similar class. You would do exactly the same thing in his position.

"We want to pay you a lot of money to show up and a give a shot at this. All you have to do is show up and finish."

"Ok."

on the runs wrote:

"We want to pay you a lot of money to show up and a give a shot at this. All you have to do is show up and finish."

"Ok."

I would think someone like him would want the best competition too. My theory is he is such a competitor that he can't stand losing so he runs races where he knows he can win. As I said, he did run London and those were great races but he got beat. After he figured out that he just isn't the same racer in the marathon that he was on the track he switched to going after the records.

He's an old man who knows that he can't keep doing this forever. There's nothing wrong with trying to mamximize your earnings at this stage of the game.

Berlin and Dubai offered him multi-year deals and no one can blame him for taking it, anymore than someone can deride Bolt for running against lacluster fields in Toronto and Ostrava. At this point, the very best take up a huge chunk of a promoter's budget and there are very few venues that could think about getting the top two or three in the same race (London could do it).

It doesnt sound like a money issue, the issue was that Haile, not the Berlin organizers, was in charge of selecting the field, presumably to make sure that people like Wanjiru who might challenge his record or upset the pace making, don't get in.

jjjjjjjjjjj wrote:

races have limited appearance fees. pretty hard to afford both haile and wanjiru. The latter could have run for free, since he knew he would beat haile and take his prize money, right?

Again, no one prevented Wanjiru from running but Wanjiru himself (or perhaps his agent).

The defenses of Haile on here are as lame as lame gets

He doesn't want to be in a competitive marathon anymore. He knows he can't beat Wanjiru at his peak. He's not a racer at this stage of his career.

Wanjiru isn't the sharpest tool in the shed:

"When pointed out to him that the World Championship could have been perfect for a world record bid since an almost similar route for the Berlin event was used, Wanjiru said: 'Yes, it could have happened there but in events like those, one is scared since you are thinking of the gold medal first then records later.'"

And if you raced Geb you wouldn't be thinking of winning first and records later?

Pad Berson wrote:

He doesn't want to be in a competitive marathon anymore. He knows he can't beat Wanjiru at his peak.

So the reason Wanjiru couldn't have done the same as thousands of other people (fill out an entry form and send it in with the appropriate registration fee) is...?