Herman must be given a LOT of credit for this. Bekele owes this one to Herman 100%
WHY?
Bekele has no discipline when in Addis Abeba. He eats what he wants and trains to his schedule etc. He still runs well doing this but more was needed to top the world marathon.
Herman told him we do it my way or we dont do this at all. Herman told him he wont waste his time with the old ways. Herman knows what Bekele is capable of. He think Bekele is the best runner of all time and not fulfilling his potential due to his business commitments back home. Plus he has had injuries and the cause of this can also be the style of his living.
Herman asked Bekele to move to Holland. A county side. He put him on a strict diet. Bekele was over weight. He lost a lot of weight. He had a special doctor looking after his injury. They had him 24/7 doing 100s of k per week. Bekele had committed to this training methods.
The result is a healthy Bekele who trained well for this.
He is an unbelievable long distance athlete who could have achieved far greater things than he has done had he not been focused on businesses. Bekele has hotels etc in addis.
Bekele lacked a bit of belife i think. He was not sure if he was still on record pace. He kept looking for someone to tell him or something like that with 1.2k to go. I swear he was looking at his
watch trying to computer the numbers in his head. This does take seconds away. If he is to break the world record, this is where he has to improve or Hermans has to get people to give him an update at 2k and 1 k and 800m to go what he needs to do. He could have EASILY broken the world record today. Easily. He lost a lot of time looking at his watch. Way more than the 2 seconds he needed.
Can he break the world record? Bet your last money he will. He is 100x better than the current holder.
Same diet. same training. stay away from injury. focus on running only and leave the business alone and he will break the world record by a long long margin.
Sometimes, we fail to credit coaches or acknowledged their effort as fans. Herman must be given a lot of credit for this.
As for Bekele, i wonder if you regrets the lost years? But there is no substitute for pure talent. He still has it. And he has time to not olny break the world record, like the 5 and 10k, set a record no one will reach for 100 years :)
Well done Herman.
by the way, i am an Ethiopian who just follows the sport as its , the only sport we follow :) What a day for mother Ethiopia.
The Berlin marathon was turned to the Ethiopian championships :)