Athletics: As Alistair Cragg comes back down to earth after his dramatic win over Ethiopia's Kenenisa Bekele, his more immediate career plans have been hastily rearranged. Ian O'Riordan reports.
Next month's European Indoor Championships in Madrid have now become the priority, with Cragg suddenly the firm favourite to capture the 3,000-metre title.
As a result, though, he has cancelled plans to join his Dublin club Clonliffe Harriers at this Saturday's European club cross country in Mantova, Italy. While Cragg was originally intent on mixing some cross country races with his indoor season, his stunning win over Bekele at the Boston Indoor Games on Saturday night has changed all that.
Just how he beat Bekele is still open to a little interpretation. There's no doubt the Olympic 10,000-metre champion miscalculated his final sprint, hitting the accelerator hardest with two laps remaining - while clearly thinking it was his last lap.
Yet Cragg had probably drawn him into the mistake, as he had accelerated with similar ferocity some four laps out, so that Bekele was fooled into believing he was closer to the finish. Anyway, Cragg regained the lead on the actual last lap and came home in 7:39.89 - the fastest time in the world this year and 1.53 seconds ahead of Bekele.
"The plan was to go at 500 metres," said Cragg, "whether I was feeling good or not. That's what my coach, John McDonnell, had told me. He's never failed me so far, so I just followed his words and it paid off."
Since leaving college last May, Cragg has taken his training to a new level, and described Saturday's run as the "easiest" 7:39 he's ever run.
His Irish record stands at 7:38.59. He now plans to run another 3,000 metres on Saturday week at his old college track at Arkansas, where he is still based, and then target a shorter race before the European Indoors, which take place from March 4th-6th.
McDonnell is still best placed to assess Cragg's future, with the Mayo-born coach having guided him throughout his successful college career at Arkansas. And he doesn't hold back on predicting just how good Cragg can be.
"If the pace was faster on Saturday he would have run faster, definitely," said McDonnell. "He knows how to win and he is not afraid of anyone. And the one thing for sure is that he is clean.
"Alistair also has a great head, and when there is a plan he has the conviction to carry it out."
By targeting the European Indoors he has also proved that honour is already more important than fortune.
"Alistair wants to win a prestigious title for Ireland. He wants that European title because he feels that the people in Ireland don't know much about him."
Cragg's 7:39.89 in Boston has helped increase to nine the number of Irish athletes who have so far qualified for the European Indoors. The other eight are: Mark Carroll (also 3,000 metres), Rob Daly, Dave Gillick, and David McCarthy (all 400 metres), sprinters Derval O'Rourke (60 metre hurdles), Allis McSweeney (60 metres) and Paul Hession (200 metres), and Deirdre Ryan (high jump).
Of those, only Carroll - the European Indoor champion in 2000 - is likely to bypass Madrid as he is preparing for the Boston marathon.
Cragg, though, is currently the fastest European by over 20 seconds, and the trip to Madrid quite clearly can't come around quick enough.
Haile Gebrselassie, the finest distance runner in history, has signed a three-year contract with London marathon organisers prior to a possible attempt at the 2008 Beijing Olympics gold.
The 31-year-old Ethiopian said yesterday he would compete in the 25th edition of the world's best big city marathon on April 17th after completing a half-marathon in Spain on Sunday.
