ATHLETICS: World Cross Country ChampionshipsKenenisa Bekele completed the most testing weekend of his athletics career in St Etienne, France yesterday by clinching a fourth consecutive World Cross Country Championships double only 10 weeks after the sudden death of his teenage fiancee Alem Techale.
After sprinting to victory in Saturday's four kilometre event, the Ethiopian made the 12km race, staged on a hot, sunny afternoon over a challenging, heavy course liberally drenched with water, look ridiculously easy. He sprinted away from the Kenyans, who had been doing their best to make life difficult, on the fifth of six laps to win in 35 minutes six seconds. Second-placed Zersenay Tadesse of Eritrea was 14 seconds adrift of Bekele and the highest-placed Kenyan was Eliud Kipchoge in fifth position.
"These victories are more significant than the previous ones because in the past I had my fiancee encouraging and supporting me," said Bekele. "The race was harder than yesterday because it was hotter and sunnier and the course was muddier."
In another Ethiopian triumph, Tirunesh Dibaba completed the first women's double since Sonia O'Sullivan in 1998, the year the short-course races were introduced for the first time.
Ethiopians won five of the six individual gold medals at stake over the weekend with the once supreme Kenyans picking up only the men's junior title.
World junior 5,000 metres champion Augustine Choge, the youngest man to break 13 minutes for the 12½-lap race, led Kenya to a sweeping victory over eight kilometre in the junior race.
Bekele's brother Tariku denied a clean sweep for the six-man Kenyan team by finishing sixth ahead of Moses Ndiema Moses Masai.
On the eve of the two-day championships, Bekele appeared to deliberately play down expectations by saying he was running for his country and his team-mates.
The Kenyans, whose 18-year grip on the men's long-course team title, was broken by Ethiopia in Brussels last year, were full of confidence before the weekend. Instead, it was Bekele and the Ethiopians, cheered on by their small group of travelling fans among crowds in excess of 20,000 people on each day, who triumphed.
Bekele said Saturday's win had been more important than his 10,000 metres gold medal in Athens last year, when he succeeded his great compatriot Haile Gebrselassie as Olympic champion. He re-emerged yesterday in temperatures of 27 degrees to show just why he is now acclaimed as the greatest distance runner in history over all surfaces by making no competition of the 12km race. "For me this was the greatest," he said. "I did this alone with grief and joy trading places in my heart."
Dibaba also found Sunday's race harder than that of the previous day. "But I'm very happy," she said.
