W(ho)TF is Ibrahim Jeilan?!?!

pic is funny. farah is turned around and saw it coming.

u idiot u shnuld respect ibrahim. He is champion.and ur comment, is that joke? If it is, not funny at all

Why didn't this guy run in Diamond League races? I find it hard to believe he can just show up and own Mo Farah who has dominated the world all year. Was this guy just avoiding testing all season? The doping in track is getting depicable. A lot of it is speculation but these world champs have raised a lot of questions so far.

Indigo Butch wrote:

Hes not an unknown you retards. Hes the former world junior xc champ and has run 27.09 in June. If you've never heard of him you're not a distance running fan.

I wish people would quit making the stupid assertion that you are not a fan of the sport if you had never heard of Jeilan. You make yourself sound like a pretentious a**hole that probably looked up his name on Google after he won.

Julius wrote:

Guys, Ethiopia uses a localized version of the Julian calendar which is about seven years behind the standard Gregorian calendar. It is currently 2003 in Ethiopia where Jeilan is 22 years old. But outside Ethiopia you need to add 7.5 years so he is 22 + 7.5 = 29.5 years old.

you are an idiot

On the front page quote he says that he qualified for the 2008 Olympics and the 2009 WC's but the Ethiopian federation wouldn't put him on the teams.

What does he mean?

In 2008 Ethiopia ran Bekele, Shihine and Geb.

I guess Geb took his spot, but Geb ran 26:51 that year, placing 2nd at Hengelo. I don't know how Jeilan think he earned a spot.

In 2009, Jeilan was the 5th fastest Ethiopian, losing head to head against Abdosh, and Dinkesa (chosen for the team).

Bekele was reigning champ. Merga was faster and placed on the team.

Now the final spot went to Gebremariam, who had a 26:52 PR but didn't run fast that year.

Maybe he was slighted by the selection of Gebremariam.

Julius is dumb wrote:

Julius wrote:

Guys, Ethiopia uses a localized version of the Julian calendar which is about seven years behind the standard Gregorian calendar. It is currently 2003 in Ethiopia where Jeilan is 22 years old. But outside Ethiopia you need to add 7.5 years so he is 22 + 7.5 = 29.5 years old.

you are an idiot

Joe - don't post your email address if you are going to be coming online insulting people.

That's just some fatherly advice.

It funny. Somebody posted earlier that he has a 7 paragraph wiki article so we should have heard of him. But the wiki article pretty much just explains at length why we haven't heard of him. It alludes to problems off the track that Jeilan doesn't want to talk about.

Under Ultra wrote:

Former World Junior 3,000m and World Junior XC Champion... he's only 21/22 and only a low-13, low-27 guy, much like Rupp and Teg.

His coming out party, for sure.

No. It says he ran 27:02 five years ago, when he was 17. That, or his win at the World Junior Championships in the 10,000 or XC, would have been his coming out party.

All the winners at WJC are 25 or older, if you still don't believe that, think about him running 27:02 (A World Record for Juniors) at just 17?

It is a laugh that LR.com didn't note anything about him considering that he was DOUBLE World Champion and had run 27:02 five years ago. Mo Farah only approached and passed that mark THIS YEAR and all of the Americans in history (even the expats) have NEVER run that fast (except Solinsky).

Back before the EPO-wave, we had a theory before every Olympics and WC that the Steeple, 5k, 10k and marathoners called the "Some African" Theory. Like Julius Korir in 1984, the theory went that the runners running the actual race could never know for sure that they would win because there was always a chance that a Juma Ikangaa would take the pace out at faster than WR pace.

Starting with 1960 and Bikila there was always 1-4 races where a fairly unknown African would shock for the win either running (seemingly recklessly) from the front or kicking to the win from the back.

The 10k has been rather predictable because of the excellence of Geb and Tergat and more recently Bekele and Sihine. The place for just 3 from Kenya and Ethiopia make the "Some African" theory much more difficult now as you need to be a well-established star to make the team for the most part.

However, looking at Jeilan's stats he did place second at the All-Africa's as recently as 2008. Not sure how competitive that meet is, but I thought it was supposed to be a tough one?

ryan foreman wrote:

It funny. Somebody posted earlier that he has a 7 paragraph wiki article so we should have heard of him. But the wiki article pretty much just explains at length why we haven't heard of him. It alludes to problems off the track that Jeilan doesn't want to talk about.

That was me. Let me walk you through the article (I didn't write or edit it, btw):

Paragraphs 1 & 2, general bio. Paragraph 3 - 2005: WJC silver, also WJXC top 5. 2006: 1st, Ethiopian senior 10,000m championships, also WJC gold, also 27:02 10,000m, world youth record.

Paragraph 4 - 2007: wins major European XC race, DNFs along with half the field and most of the ETH team at Mombasa, struggles rest of year.

Paragraph 5 - 2008: wins national junior XC, then wins WJXC. Also silver at African championships 10,000m behind Gebre Gebremariam.

Paragraph 6 - 2008 continued: 4th and 2nd at Hengelo & Pre, bronze at WJC (admittedly was favored to win), way back at Brussels, some late-season road-race wins.

Paragraph 7 - 2009 down year, moves on to US road circuit then Japanese corporate team (that's me filling in a gap, it isn't in the article).

My point being, Jeilan had four medals from major regional and world championships prior to Daegu. If you started following this sport in the last year, or only watch the Olympics, WCs and a Diamond League meet or two, fine, but don't claim to be a knowledgeable fan.