Remembering Gebrselassie’s and Bekele’s world 5000m records in Hengelo

Amid the drizzle on a grey afternoon in the Netherlands, Haile Gebrselassie’s megawatt smile lifted the gloom. The 1994 edition of what was then known as the Adriaan Paulen Memorial Meeting, in honour of the late Dutch Olympian who served as president of the International Amateur Athletic Federation, was drawing to a close.

Only the men’s 5000m remained and some bedraggled spectators chose to head for the exit in the predominantly open-air Fanny Blankers-Koen Stadion rather than wait to watch the young Ethiopian who had taken 10,000m gold and 5000m silver at the World Championships in Stuttgart the previous summer.

They were to miss a historic treat: the emergence of Gebrselassie as a world-record-breaking phenomenon. On that dank, dismal day 30 years ago – 4 June 1994 – the 1.65m (5ft 5in) East African put the unassuming Dutch town of Hengelo firmly on the global track and field map.

Ten years later, in the 2004 version of what had by then become the FBK Games – in memory of Blankers-Koen, the Dutch sporting icon who won four Olympic golds in London in 1948 - Gebrselassie’s compatriot Kenenisa Bekele set his first world record, also at 5000m.

Over the span of a decade, the global mark for the 12.5 lap event was reduced in Hengelo from 12:56.96 to 12:37.55 by the two diminutive Ethiopian giants of the distance running game.

In between, Gebrselassie further gilded the town’s reputation with a pair of world-record-breaking runs at 10,000m, clocking 26:43.53 in 1995 and 26:22.75 in 1998, plus a two-mile world best of 8:01.08 in 1997. The locals took the affable Ethiopian to their hearts, dubbing him ‘Mr Hengelo’.

4 June 1994 – “believe me when I tell you I’m ready”

As the runners gathered on the start line for that 5000m in 1994, precious few folk in the FBK Stadion could have suspected that Gebrselassie was about to blaze a trail that would take him to a staggering tally of 27 global marks, at distances ranging from two miles to the marathon.

Smiling and sharing a casual chat with fellow Ethiopian Wurku Bikila, the 21-year-old looked for all the world like he was about to embark on an afternoon stroll.

In actual fact, Gebrselassie had his sights set on 12:58.39, the world record time set by the masterful Moroccan Said Aouita in Rome back in 1987.

“The only thing on my mind as I waited for the gun that afternoon was the splits I wanted to hit,” he told Jim Denison in The Greatest: The Haile Gebrselassie Story. “I knew I could break Aouita’s record. My training had been going so well.”

His Dutch mentor, Jos Hermens, was not quite so sure.

“Jos was cautious,” Gebrselassie recalled. “‘I don’t know, Haile’, he told me. But I said to him, ‘Come on, Jos, believe me when I tell you I’m ready.”

As it happened, Hermens was in position at the 200m mark on the track, the starting point for the race, ready to play a role that would become so familiar to the man from Nijmegen who in his own clock-chasing career broke the 20,000m world record twice, the world hour record twice – becoming the first to run 13 miles in 60 minutes – and a world track best for 10 miles.

Stopwatch in one hand, world record schedule in the other, the bespectacled Hermens shouted out every 400m split as Gebrselassie, running smoothly with his distinctively bouncy stride, overtook the second of his pacemakers and hit 3000m in 7:50.9 – with Bikila, fourth in the previous year’s world 5000m final, still in tow.

“Sixty-ones, Haile,” Hermens hollered from the infield. “You need to keep running 61s.”

Bikila started to drop dramatically as Gebrselassie gritted his teeth and dug in. Reeling off closing laps of 61.3, 60.3 and 59.2, the world 10,000m champion finished 1.43 inside Aouita’s record, clocking 12:56.96.

Hengelo had its first world record – in a meeting which at that time bore the name of Paulen, the first man to set a global mark at the Bislett Stadium in Oslo: 63.8 for 500m in 1924.

31 May 2004 – “and now Kenenisa has his turn”

By the time Kenenisa Bekele lined up for the 5000m at what was then the FBK Games 10 years later – on 31 May 2004 – Gebrselassie had lost the world record to Kenyans Moses Kiptanui and Daniel Komen but twice regained it, taking it down to 12:39.36 in Helsinki in 1998.

Like Gebrselassie in Hengelo 10 years prior, Bekele was aged 21 and had won the world 10,000m title the year before. He also had the first three of his five successive world cross-country long-and-short-course doubles behind him.

This time the sun was out, and Hermens had swapped his tracksuit for a suit and tie. The Hengelo world record machine had become a notably slicker operation.

Bekele needed to run 17.6 seconds quicker than his compatriot on the same track a decade previously to replace him in the world record book. In his own beautifully silky style, he tracked the Kenyan pacemaker David Kiplak through 2000m in 5:05.47 and was 25 metres clear of the field as he passed 3000m in 7:37.34 – 12.5 seconds quicker than Gebrselassie’s 1994 split.

Tearing round the last few laps in sprinting mode, clocking 57.85 seconds for the final lap, Bekele crossed the line in 12:37.35 – 2.01 seconds inside Gebrselassie’s world record – with Tina Turner’s Simply The Best blaring over the public address system.

The former world record-holder happened to be watching, having finished runner-up to Sileshie Sihine in the 10,000m. “Ten years ago, I first set the 5000m record here and now Kenenisa has his turn,” said the magnanimous Gebrselassie. “I am so pleased to see such a beautiful runner in Hengelo.”

Bekele himself confessed: “I was very self-confident today. I felt very strong. At 3000m, I was convinced I would break the record.”

Eight days later, Bekele broke Gebrselassie’s 10,000m world record, clocking 26:20.31 in Ostrava. A new Ethiopian king of distance running was ruling the global roost.

Simon Turnbull for World Athletics