Tadese's HM WR is so stubborn

deathinparadise wrote:

Five is the magic number wrote:

That can change in five seconds in a dictatorship. Having hero status in a dictatorship actually makes it more dangerous to be a people's hero, say the wrong thing just once and they'll have to discredit him faster than they'd crack down on a regular person.

Yes but has it actually happened to Tadese ? I haven't seen anything anywhere, apart from here, suggesting it has !

Point is, he's chosen to live abroad for some reason, in a non-optimal running city, instead of living the hero lifestyle in Erithrea. Looks a lot like better safe than sorry, unless there's a french woman involved.

AGAIN, where have you read that he has left his country and now lives in Paris ?!

It was in those meet-the-athletes articles during the sub 2-project. All three spent a week or two in Kenya with Kipchoge, a week or two in Ethipia and a week or two in Europe (Paris, or possibly Madrid). Seems ungoogleble now for some reason. I think Nike has killed a lot of online stuff about the other two from that thing.

Already 2007 he was living in Spain, said the IAAF:

"Tadese whose nickname in Spain where he lives and trains is ‘Luchi’ because the Police originally mis-read his passport and used this his mother’s family name for all his official Spanish documentation."

https://www.iaaf.org/news/news/it-felt-like-the-whole-of-eritrea-was-running

Ok, well that was 11 years ago and there's no indication he fled his country, possibly down to a better training environment. As Breaking2 videos, yes that's also where I remember him being feted as a hero in his country and no mention of him living Paris, so unless something happened since that no one seems to have heard about apart from you well I guess that can't be given as a reason for him not to be able to perform with the best on the marathon.

Ehsi wrote:

OKJ wrote:

I disagree with that comment. The half marathon is more highly contested than the marathon on a global scale by the world's elites. Mo Farah, Joshua Cheptegei, Geoffrey Kamworor, Kipchoge, Bekele, Geb have all run the half marathon. The HM for Tadesse was simply a perfect storm for his skill set. A world class 10,000m and Cross Country runner hitting the roads in the off season. His championship record speaks to his ability over the Half. The only ones that come close are Gebrselassie, Tergat, and Kam...

Never has the world’s best distance runner said, “I am going to focus on the half marathon this year.” Lots of good athletes run it as an afterthought or tuneup. Nobody ever sets out to specialize in it, and rarely does anyone try to peak for it.

That´s what I was going to say- it´s always a build up to the marathon.

I would love to see a Marathon Majors/Grand Prix type thing with the 1/2 marathon- maybe 7-8 races throughout the year- points and prize money each race with a winner at the end.

The distance is very popular and the runners will be in the public eye more often than the marathon.

Use existing races all over the world.

Kid of like Formula 1 racing format.

deathinparadise wrote:

there's no indication he fled his country, possibly down to a better training environment.

At least we agree on something. No, he didn't flee his country, since he can still go home, should he want to. To get the full picture you must imagine what it's like to be the ONE AND ONLY athletic superstar in an entire country, one that is also a dictatorship.

a) Your enourmous popularity among the people will make daily training almost impossible, everyone will want to speak to you should they see you

.

b) That popularity among the people also means you must tread very carefully, the dictatorship security people will be on your every public word like white on rice.

It was probably an enormous relief to him when Ghirmay Ghebreslassie emerged as their second superstar.