Kenenisa Bekele Came To Win The New York Marathon


Kenenisa Bekele, arguably the greatest distance runner of all time, really shouldn’t be here. in New York. Running another marathon just six weeks after the last marathon. He believes he is on the verge of proving to the world that he is the fastest marathoner alive.

But on Thursday afternoon, Bekele, 39, took a short walk in Central Park from the finish line of the New York City Marathon, which he planned to win a little before noon Sunday morning.

“I’ll be in a very good position,” said Bekele of her chances.

Actually. He’s the fastest marathoner alive, and he’s a lot faster than anyone else in the race, even if that marathon doesn’t necessarily favor the fastest on the field.

A little over two years ago, Bekele completed the Berlin Marathon in 2 hours 1 minute 41 seconds, just two seconds apart. Eliud Kipchoge‘s world record was broken in Berlin last year. He has two major marathon titles, three Olympic gold medals, and five world titles in the 10,000 and 5,000 meters.

He ran the Berlin Marathon in September and finished third in 2:06:47, just 62 seconds behind the winner. He attributed his performance to a bad night’s sleep and limited training time due to a Covid-19 case. Regardless, it would certainly be appropriate to call it the season.

Instead, he pursued his plan to also run New York, a race he had never done before, just six weeks after Berlin. He refuses to accept the idea that runners approaching their 40th birthday shouldn’t even consider winning one of the six world marathon events. He said he believed he could find those two seconds left on the track in Berlin in 2019 and break Kipchoge’s world record.

“I can go faster and win races,” he said. “I’ll win the race if I go faster.”

The fact that Bekele went faster is a frightening thought for his rival, who lamented the honor and lasting speed of being on the same starting line with someone many idolized growing up.

“If he goes out and runs the 4:35 mile, I won’t see him much,” said Jared Ward, a veteran American marathoner.

Still, there’s Kipchoge in the marathon running world, and then there’s everyone else. Speaking in concise parables, Kipchoge two hour barrier in 2019. He achieved legendary status in athletics, becoming the fastest philosopher king in world history.

However, this run did not count as a world record. Its sole purpose was to prove that a human could run 26.2 miles in less than two hours. Kipchoge made a series of loops for himself in Vienna, which coincided with a time trial on a straight course, surrounded by a rotating speed-defining staff that blocked the wind and kept it in its path. A world record is only counted if it occurs in a confirmed race.

Here is where Bekele concentrated his efforts in the twilight of his career, seeking one last passenger to give him something that Kipchoge did not have.

Jos Hermens, who runs both Bekele and Kipchoge, said that Bekele may be a more natural runner than Kipchoge, but proves that Kipchoge has a stronger mind.

“Kipchoge Zen, but Bekele is a Ferrari,” Hermens said. “Watch him run downhill on Sunday. No one can run like him.”

Bekele and Kipchoge were expected to face off at the Olympic marathon in Japan. However, Bekele had a dispute with the Ethiopian Athletic Federation over the qualifying rules. Bekele’s close world record in Berlin should have earned him one of three places on the team. But after the pandemic delayed the Games, Ethiopian authorities decided to hold a 35km race in May to determine the Olympic team. Bekele did not compete, and officials rejected Bekele’s appeal to be automatically included in the team. They took three marathoners whose best times weren’t nearly as fast as Bekele’s. None of them won a medal.

Without the Olympic marathon, Bekele’s legs have had plenty of time to prepare for a busy fall season, putting them to good and highly lucrative use.

A star like Bekele charges a six-figure appearance fee to run a big race like the New York City Marathon. If he wins, he’ll get another $100,000. Hermens said the earnings will help Bekele continue to recover from several troubled real estate investments it has made in Ethiopia over the past decade.

However, winning is not a guarantee. The first half of the race is largely flat, but as you head towards Manhattan, and especially in the final miles, the rolling terrain allows runners who can’t keep up with the fastest racers on a flat course to compete.

But Bekele is not just a speed machine. He won 11 cross country world championships from 2002 to 2008 and knows how to climb a hill or get out of a pit or manhole cover as the New York course sometimes requires.

And yet 2:01:41 is 2:01:41, an ugly time for anyone in the elite male space that isn’t in the same universe as the best times. For Bekele, it would have been stunning not to win, even if it was only six weeks away from his last race.

He rested for a day after the Berlin Marathon, followed by a week of light training, but soon returned to running 130 miles a week, knowing what awaited him in New York.

“The marathon is a distance,” he said. “It’s not easy.”



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