Wolf's Bane wrote:
Bekele moved to the roads too early in his career. He was still on top of the world and decided to step off the track even though he's more of a 10k/xc specialist. Well it turns out, he isn't as good over half marathon. Now he can't really cope with not being the world's best so he can't finish any races. Kind of understandable, as a world record holder, you don't want to just be another elite, but that's the level Bekele is out now.
The last time Bekele was at the top of his game was 2009 when he again dominated the 5000 and 10000 at the World Champs.
Since then, he has had a handful of "ok" races, off the top of my head, the 26:43 WL in 2011 when he had essentially not raced in almost 2 years, the half marathon in 2013(?) when he beat Farah and an over the hill Geb, his debut marathon in Paris where he ran 205 flat, mostly solo, and the exceptional and unexpected 203 flat in Berlin, which is now two years old.
So we're talking 9 years now where Bekele having a great race is more of an exception not the rule. But the guy has the mentality of a champ, after all he has a ridiculous amount of hardware. He even said himself a couple years ago that he didn't want to run with "weaker runners" when referring to 206 marathoners. That says all you need to know there.
Bekele will keep trying to be or run with the top dogs and he will keep getting dropped or DNF.
Actually, I don't think it'll be much longer. He will try a spring marathon, and if it's another DNF, he will retire.