Kenenisa Bekele over 3,000m at the World Indoor Championships in Moscow. © Jiro Mochizuki / Photo Run
On his way to perhaps becoming the best distance runner of all times, Kenenisa Bekele took the next step in Moscow on Sunday. The Ethiopian won the 3,000-meter race in 7:39.32 minutes at the IAAF World Indoor Championships. He is now the only runner in athletics’ history who has won at World Cross Country Championships, as well as World Outdoor Championships and now also at World Indoor Championships. Again he outplayed his former model Haile Gebrselassie. Because his countryman, whose 5,000m and 10,000m world records he had already broken, only won two of the categories. Gebrselassie has never been a World Cross Country Champion.
“Compared to the victories in the summer and at the World Cross Country Championships these World Indoors were fun for me,” explained Kenenisa Bekele, who for the first time ever competed at indoor championships. But his competitors were far from being weak. Quite contrary: the 3,000m was the strongest competition of the whole championships. Besides the 10,000m Olympic Champion Bekele the 5,000m World Champion of 2003, Eliud Kipchoge (Kenya) and the 3,000m steeplechase world record holder, Said Saaeef Shaheen (Qatar), had entered the event. The ‘deserter’ from Kenya Shaheen had changed citizenship in 2003 after he was lured away with a substantial amount of money.
These three had not run against each other in a big final. The tension was so high, that the stars produced a rare false start. As the race was at its peak, one was unstoppable: Kenenisa Bekele. “I knew my competitors and how they would run,” said the Ethiopian while Shaheen said: “I wasn’t very clever. I should have been close to Kenenisa when he increased the pace. That was a fault. But nonetheless I am happy, because I have never been run an indoor race like that before.”
The last time that the 23-year-old Bekele and Gebrselassie, who is nine years older, met in a big final was at the 2004 Olympic Games at 10,000m. Bekele won gold in Athens. The agent of both, the Dutchmen Jos Hermens, was relieved after that, that Haile Gebrselassie switched to road races. “What for should we have these duels,” asked Jos Hermens. “In the end there would always be a looser. You would either say Kenenisa is not as good as it is said or Haile’s time is over.”
While Kenenisa Bekele collects titles and records on distances up to 10,000m, Haile Gebrselassie tries to crown his career and to be once more ahead of Bekele. His big goal is the marathon world record, which was set in 2003 by Kenyan Paul Tergat in Berlin (2:04:55 hours). He still lacks 85 seconds. Nut while Bekele won on Sunday in Moscow, Gebrselassie set a new 25K world record (1:11:37 hours) in Alphen (Holland). Earlier this year he had set a new half marathon world record of 58:55 minutes as well. The more successful Gebrselassie will be on the road, the more eager Bekele will probably be to break these records as well. But he probably won’t go on the road until Haile Gebrselassie has retired. Jos Hermens will arrange that.
