What’s the Deal With the Ethiopian Olympic Marathon Trials?

By Jonathan Gault
March 29, 2021

On March 5, photographer Aman Ahmed dropped a bomb on the running world:

breaking news!
Ethiopian Olympic Trials Marathon
For #Tokyo2020 April 04 2021
@ Awassa City in #Ethiopia .

news source EAF. pic.twitter.com/TGyfCz0jN2

— Aman (@angasurunning) March 5, 2021

Could this possibly be true? Ethiopia, a country whose marathon supremacy is rivaled only by Kenya, was going to stage an Olympic marathon trials?

At 5,600 feet elevation?

With less than one month’s notice?

What the hell was going on?

It brought back memories of Athletics Kenya’s ill-fated decision to stage an Olympic marathon trials ahead of the 2016 Games. At the time, LetsRun.com ripped AK for not giving their marathoners enough of a heads-up — and that was for a February race announced in October. Then the athletes, agents, and coaches weighed in.

On October 27, 2015, Athletics Kenya announced the trials were cancelled. Their plan had lasted all of 12 days.

Twenty-four days after Ahmed’s tweet, the Ethiopian trials — despite a much quicker turnaround — have not been cancelled and appear to be moving forward in 2021. In the last month, every aspect of the trials, from the date to the location to the distance of the race, has been the subject of behind-the-scenes debate. But it does appear that a trials race will happen, just on a different date and in a different location.

Looking For The Best Shoes?

Best Overall Training Shoe

Brooks Ghost 15

Buy now for $109 See All Reviews

The Ethiopian Athletics Federation (EAF) has been willing to make concessions. After athletes, naturally, requested more time to prepare for the race, the federation agreed to move the date back by four weeks. And the race will no longer be held at altitude — another logical change, considering the Olympic marathon will be held at sea level in Sapporo.

The current plan, according to Haji Adilo, coach of the Ethiopian Olympic marathon team, is to hold the trials — which will be a full 26.2 miles — in Geneva, Switzerland, on May 2. The top three finishers in each race will represent Ethiopia in Japan in August.

Sounds simple enough, right? But the journey to this point — not to mention the steps that remain over the next five weeks (such as ensuring all athletes receive a Swiss visa in time) — has been anything but and could have major implications for the greatest distance runner of all time in what could be his final Olympics. Here’s how we got here — and the biggest questions that still remain.

***

Five years ago, the EAF selected its Olympic marathon team based on a combination of time and place at recent marathons. It worked out okay — Feyisa Lilesa claimed a silver medal on the men’s side in Rio, while Mare Dibaba and Tirfi Tsegaye went 3-4 on the women’s side behind a pair of women later busted for EPO.

Hindsight is 20-20, however. Tesfaye Abera, who had never run faster than 2:09:46 prior to 2016, exploded onto the scene that spring and was selected to the team on the strength of wins in Dubai and Hamburg. Abera was picked ahead of Kenenisa Bekele, who finished third against a far more competitive field that spring in London (he beat reigning world champion Ghirmay Ghebreslassie in fourth by over a minute), where it took two of the fastest times in history from Kenyans Eliud Kipchoge and Stanley Biwott to beat him. Abera DNF’d at the Olympics in Rio and hasn’t been heard from since, while just 35 days after the Olympic marathon, Bekele delivered a virtuoso performance to win Berlin in 2:03:03, just six seconds shy of the world record at the time.

The point? Even in a normal year, picking an Ethiopian Olympic marathon team is no easy task. A trials race isn’t guaranteed to select the best team, but it is the only truly fair option. Without a trials, subjectivity will always creep in. And no one wants to take responsibility if their subjective decision doesn’t work out.

“I don’t want to be in charge,” says one agent when I ask him how he would select the team.

When I ask Adilo the same question, he spends the next five seconds chuckling before a lengthy pause, “Sorry. I know, but I don’t say. If this is in media, if it comes up, it’s difficult.”

At the start of 2021, the Ethiopian federation decided it would hold a lengthy training camp, putting up many of its top athletes across all distances in hotels in the capital of Addis Ababa in January and keeping them there until their departure for the Games in order to keep tabs on them. According to an agent familiar with the process, the plan was to gradually whittle the marathon group down from 10 to six to four, and finally to the group of three athletes who would represent Ethiopia in Sapporo.

Not every athlete was present in the camp, however. And as it became increasingly clear that the spring 2021 marathon season would be virtually nonexistent, those on the outside looking in grew frustrated. How were they supposed to show they belonged on the Olympic team when there were no major marathons in which to prove their fitness? Especially when some of them did not even race a marathon last fall.

That, the agent says, is when the idea of a trials race began to pick up steam. But a trials race brought its own issues. An Olympic marathon trials is not a race to be conjured out of thin air on short notice. The whole point of a trials race is to afford everyone an equal opportunity to make the team. Announcing a marathon a month or two out defeats that purpose. For an athlete already fit and training, an eight-week buildup is doable; for those athletes who were rehabbing injuries or not in full training, it’s virtually impossible.

“Some athletes are a little bit behind because Ethiopia was completely locked down in late 2020 so some athletes were not fully training,” says the agent, who requested anonymity in order to speak freely about the process. “Some athletes were ahead of other athletes.”

One of the reasons the trials idea was so late to germinate is that there was hope last fall, after successful marathons in London and Valencia, that there would be some sort of marathon season this spring. But by October 28 — when Boston joined Tokyo and London in postponing its 2021 edition to the fall — it looked bleak. British Athletics saw the writing on the wall and announced in November that it would hold a trials race on March 26, giving its athletes enough time to prepare properly (it worked out rather nicely). If Ethiopia was going to hold a trials, last fall was the time to announce it. The EAF did not.

While it was a massive mistake to wait so long to announce a trials, one can at least understand why the EAF wants to hold them.

“What essentially they’re trying to find out, in my opinion, is who is actually in shape and who’s trying to stay silent because they might have a niggle or an injury or something,” says agent Malcolm Anderson. “And that’s definitely not someone that you want to be on the team.

“So from a federation point of view, I think it would make sense [to hold some sort of trials], just like when you’ve been selected, you have to prove fitness. And you prove fitness by running a race. Whether or not it’s a full marathon or not is another question…I think they need some way to assess who’s fit because a lot of athletes haven’t raced for so long.”

One other issue with waiting so long to announce the trials: whoever does run them will only have 14 weeks to recover and build up again for the Olympic marathon. It’s certainly possible to double back and run well at the Olympics after a spring marathon — both of the 2016 champions, Kipchoge and disgraced doper Jemima Sumgong, ran London that spring — but 14 weeks is starting to cut it tight (Kipchoge had a 17-week gap, Sumgong 16). It’s a lot to ask of an athlete (not to mention a recipe for injury) to rush a buildup for the trials, deliver on the day, and then come back three months later and deliver again at the Olympics.

The Ethiopian trials in Geneva will feature very small fields, though the identity of those athletes isn’t finalized. Aman Ahmed named 10 men and nine women who would receive invitations to compete; Adilo says the list is even smaller, six men and six women. Here are the names Adilo gave to LetsRun:

Men
Kenenisa Bekele (2:01:41 pb, two-time Berlin champ, three-time Olympic champ on track)
Birhanu Legese (2:02:48 pb, two-time Tokyo champ)
Mosinet Geremew (2:02:55, 2nd 2019 London, 2nd 2019 Worlds)
Sisay Lemma (2:03:36 pb, 3rd 2020 Tokyo, 3rd 2020 London)
Lelisa Desisa (2:04:45 pb, 2013 & 2019 world champ, two-time Boston champ, 2018 NYC champ)
Shura Kitata (2:04:49 pb, 2020 London champ)

Women
Roza Dereje (2:18:30 pb, wins at 2018 Dubai & 2019 Valencia)
Birhane Dibaba (2:18:35 pb, two-time Tokyo champ)
Degitu Azimeraw (2:19:26 pb, 2019 Amsterdam champ, 6th 2020 Valencia)
Zeineba Yimer (2:19:28 pb, 4th 2020 Valencia)
Tigist Girma (2:19:52 pb, 5th 2020 Tokyo, 5th 2020 Valencia)
Ashete Bekere (2:20:14 pb, wins at 2018 Valencia & 2019 Berlin)

Most of those athletes are expected to run the trials, but it’s unclear whether those names represent the final start lists (it’s possible that some of the athletes on Ahmed’s list — and perhaps others — will also be allowed to compete). Some athletes not listed want to be added to the race. One of the athletes Anderson represents, Tsedat Ayana, third at last year’s Dubai Marathon in 2:06:18, is an example of someone hoping to get the chance to prove himself at the trials.

“If you have such a lack of racing opportunities [in the last year], I think it would be a good idea to for them to consider expanding the list [of entrants],” Anderson says. “Even if it would still look at those who were in the top 30 from 2020, even with the context of lack of racing that year. And it would probably make it more of an interesting spectacle for fans, just as much as it would for the Ethiopian federation.”

Anderson isn’t holding his breath; so far, he has yet to receive any formal communication from the EAF about the trials. Currently, Ayana is training for the Milan Marathon on May 16, though he will run the Ethiopian trials if accepted.

Adilo coaches a number of the athletes listed above, including Kitata, Desisa, and Azimeraw, and says their plan is to compete in the trials. It will require an adjustment — initially, all were focused on peaking for the Olympics, with none planning on running a spring marathon. But if a trials is what it takes to make the team, Adilo will adjust accordingly.

“Since we are hearing about trials, our concentration, we will make our mind to prepare them for a race, like a usual race,” Adilo says. “So we change our training plan, change our strategy. We know the date, then we make our training plan according to the race date. That’s it…There is not any [other] opportunities, there is not any chance [to compete]. If the person is ready, [they’re] ready. If the person is not ready, [they are] out. Finished.”

It’s also possible that some of the athletes who do receive invitations turn them down.

One athlete reportedly displeased with the trials is Birhanu Legese, who would almost certainly be on the team if it was left up to a selection committee. Legese ran 2:03:16 in Valencia last year, the fastest by an Ethiopian in 2020, and has won the last two Tokyo Marathons.

“I think there’s a difference in the respective stages of where each of those guys [on the entry list] is at,” Anderson says. “And same for the girls. I did hear that some of the athletes would just refuse to run in the trial. They’d say, Look, if you want me to come, just pick me now, because you know who I am. And I think you know who I’m talking about. Which is fair enough, as well.”

And that brings us to the GOAT.

When Kenenisa Bekele revived his career (again) with his mesmerizing 2:01:41 in Berlin 18 months ago, it was thrilling not just for what the race represented in the moment, but for what it represented in the future. Bekele, then 37, had just run the finest marathon of his life heading into the Olympic year of 2020. Were he selected for the Ethiopian team — which seemed likely given he had just run a minute faster than anyone in history not named Kipchoge — a showdown with Kipchoge loomed in Sapporo, where Bekele would have the chance to join Emil Zatopek as the only men to claim Olympic gold in the 5,000, 10,000, and marathon.

If Bekele, who turns 39 in June, doesn’t run the trials, would he consider retiring?

Now, however, it is harder to justify Bekele’s selection. As magnificent as he is at his best, Bekele has battled injuries on-and-off for the past decade and was forced to withdraw from the London Marathon in October due to a calf injury. He will turn 39 in June. It is not unreasonable for the EAF to want some proof that he will be ready to go at the Olympics when almost two years will have passed since his last marathon.

“I don’t think he’ll run [the trials] because it’s a short period of preparation for him,” Adilo says. “He was thinking to run Olympics, but [the] trials [was announced] one month ago, so I think he’s not ready for this, from what I understand.”

According to Adilo, Bekele did start training for the trials once they were announced, but his father died recently, which interrupted his preparation.

“For that, it’s a break [from training],” Adilo says. “For that reason, I don’t think he’s ready to run.”

It is understandable, even before his personal tragedy, why Bekele would resist the idea of a trials. Consistency is not his strong suit, and if he has to rush his way back into shape for the trials against better-prepared rivals, he wouldn’t stand much chance of making the team.

And if Bekele does not run the trials…does that mean he has run his last race? Or does he return to Berlin in the fall, as he did in 2016, and take one last crack at the world record, the goal that his driven his marathon career? His future is unclear (Bekele’s agent, Jos Hermens, did not respond to LetsRun’s interview request).

If Bekele is indeed out of the trials, if his Olympic dream is dead, let us pause and pour one out for what might have been. Bekele vs. Kipchoge, the two fastest marathoners in history, on the roads of Sapporo, 17 years after their first Olympic encounter (men’s 5,000m results in Athens: 1. Hicham El Guerrouj, 2. Kenenisa Bekele, 3. Eliud Kipchoge) is the matchup craved by distance fans the world over, especially after Bekele was left off of Ethiopia’s roster in 2016. For the sport to be denied it — and for Bekele to be denied what would almost certainly be his final Olympics — because he wasn’t prepared for a trials race sprung on him by the Ethiopian federation at the last minute would be a great shame. But that is where we are.

Talk about this article on the LRC messageboard. MB: Breaking: Ethiopian Olympic coach Haji Adilo on Kenenisa Bekele: “I don’t think he’ll run [the marathon trials].”

From the archives: LRC The Bravest Olympian in Rio — Ethiopia’s Feyisa Lilesa Risks Death But Speaks Out About Killings of Oromo Protesters in Ethiopia After Earning Olympic Silver in Marathon