Haile Gebrselassie got not only the victory at the International Brabants Dagblad road race in Tilburg, Holland (4th September) but also set a new world’s best at the 10 miles, after leaving his competitors by themselves.
Gebrselassie, who is preparing for the Amsterdam marathon next month, won with a gap of more than two minutes to the Kenyan Luke Kibet, clocking 44:24 minutes. After his glamorous track career the 32-year-old Ethiopian improved the eight year old world record of the Kenyan Paul Koech (44:45 minutes) by 21 seconds.
A week later the Kenyan Samuel Wanjiru won the second edition of the Fortis Half Marathon in Rotterdam (11th September) with a new half marathon world record of 59:16 minutes.
The just 18-year-old Kenyan, who lives in Fukuoka, Japan, for three years and runs for the Toyota Yushu company, improved the seven year old world record of Paul Tergat by just one second. On a warm and windless day, the young runner ran two thirds of the race alone in front of the field. Tergat had already run faster in Lisbon (59:06), but this course has got a drop that does not meet the standard for a world record course.
Wanjiru already proved in Brussels at the TDK Golden League Meeting (26th August) what he is capable of. He finished third, behind Kenenisa Bekele, who set a new world record (26:17.53), and Boniface Kiprop (26:39.77). Wanjiru set a new junior world record of 26:41.75 minutes. That was an improvement of 23 seconds to the old one.
This year he as well already held the fastest half marathon time of the year of 59:43 minutes. He ran this time in Sendai, Japan on 10th July. The half marathon was just his second race, besides Brussels, in Europe.
