Men’s Steeple: Mahiedine Mekhissi-Benabbad Begins Quest for Double Gold

By David Monti, @d9monti
(c) 2014 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved

ZÜRICH (12-Aug) — In this morning’s preliminary round of the men’s steeplechase at the 21st European Championships in Athletics here, France’s Mahiedine Mekhissi-Benabbad wore a special bib with a gold background, signifying his status as reigning champion.  Indeed, he won gold at these championships in both 2010 in Barcelona and 2012 in Helsinki, and after the latter victory scored a silver medal at the London Olympics.

But speaking to reporters today at the Letzigrund after finishing fifth in the second of two heats in 8:33.44 –a race in which he was clearly running easily– the 29 year-old was careful not to appear overconfident.

“Many people pick me for the title, but it is a mistake to assume that I will win,” he said in French.

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During his heat this morning, Mekhissi-Benabbad stayed behind the leaders to avoid trouble.  With three laps to go in the seven and one-half lap race, he was back in seventh place.  Moreover, he didn’t respond immediately when Germany’s Martin Grau, Turkey’s Tarik Langat Akdag, and Italy’s Yuri Floriani upped the pace.  Instead, he gently increased his speed, got into the top-5 automatic positions for advancement, and simply held his place to the finish line.  For good measure, he looked behind several times in the homestretch just to be sure.

“Today, I tried to conserve my energy,” he said.  He added: “With experience, it is not important to win the heat.  It was a race just for qualifying.”

Conserving energy is particularly important for Mekhissi-Benabbad.  In addition to running in Thursday’s steeplechase final, the Frenchman is also competing in the 1500m prelims on Friday morning.  He has the 9th-fastest time at 1500m this year of any European (3:35.34), and has a much faster personal best of 3:33.12.   In the “metric mile” he’ll face top contenders Henrik Ingebrigtsen of Norway, the European leader with a seasonal best of 3:31.46, and Homiyu Tesfaye of Germany, who has run 3:31.98 this season.

“It was easy,” he said when asked to rate his effort this morning.

Also advancing to Thursday’s final was the 2006 European champion, Jukka Keskisalo of Finland; the #2 European this year based on time, Krystian Zalewski of Poland; and national record holder, Mitko Tsenov of Bulgaria.  Spain’s Víctor García, who was ranked #3 in Europe this season on time, crashed over the final barrier, landed hard on his chest and face, and was unable to finish.  He had to be helped off of the track by medical personnel.

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