Bekele crosses the finish in a 10,000m World record in Ostrava (© Getty Images)
Hengelo, The NetherlandsThe Thales FBKGames - IAAF Grand Prix - which has witnessed so many distance running World records in its distinguished history is set to christen its newly refurbished stadium with yet another mark of excellence by an Ethiopian endurance champion this Sunday (29 May).
World and Olympic 10,000m champion Kenenisa Bekele, as he exclusively announced to the IAAF website earlier this week – click here for original story – is in World record shape, and set to improve on the 10,000m mark (26:20.31) he established last summer in Ostrava.
Athlete of the Year and the current Overall leader and for the 5000m/10,000m category in the IAAF World Rankings, Bekele is the athlete of the moment. His epic battle to regain physical and emotional fitness after the tragic death of his fiancée this January, which resulted in his double triumph at the World Cross Country Championships in March, is the stuff of sporting legend.
This year’s edition of this IAAF Grand Prix meeting on Sunday should add another chapter to Bekele’s prodigious catalogue of victories, as the 22 year-old will race the 10,000m, the distance at which he is the World and Olympic champion. He will have Uganda’s World Junior record holder Boniface Kiprop as a chief challenger.
Last year the World 5000m record (12:37.35) fell to Bekele’s fleet feet in Hengelo, and this year it is another impressively talented Ethiopian, the Olympic 10,000m silver and World bronze medallist, Sileshi Sihine, who is the appointed Ethiopian hero at the 5000m distance, with much of the might of Kenya to contend with including World Junior champion Augustine Choge.
El Guerrouj withdraws ill
The meeting organisers in Hengelo were very disappointed yesterday when Morocco’s Hicham El Guerrouj had to withdraw. The double Olympic champion for 1500m and 5000m has had a fever and a sore throat in the past days and decided to stay in Morocco. He was supposed to have raced Kenya's World 5000m champion Eliud Kipchoge and Paul Bitok in the 3000m metres here.
Click here for the original story
Sprint talents on show
The home of distance World records has also spread out a very attractive sprinting display, both over the hurdles and on the flat, this Sunday. The twin sisters Susanna and Jenny Kallur from Sweden will run the women’s 100 metres Hurdles, and there is welcome return for quadruple World champion Allen Johnson in the men’s sprint Hurdles.
Johnson will compete in Hengelo for the first time in eleven years. “This meeting was always on the same day as the Prefontaine Classic’, he said yesterday. Johnson’s first goal is “not to fall again,” as he joked about the incident at the Athens Games, where he ended his struggle for gold in the second round. In the final he saw “Xiang equalling the World record of Colin Jackson (12.91). That did not disappoint me, though I have been keen on that record for a long time. I was sitting in the stadium, saw his race and thought: ‘if he can do it, then I’m capable of an even faster time if I’m in the right shape’.”
This year a fifth World title is his main goal for the season. At the end of it, he will race Liu Xiang in Shanghai, at the first big meeting in China. “That will be a difficult race for me, cause he’s on his home-soil,” Johnson predicted. In Hengelo, Dudley Dorival and Shaun Bownes will be his strongest opponents.
Jones: no long jump this season
Marion Jones will stick to the sprints this season. The Long Jump is not on her schedule for her meetings in June, nor for the American Championships or the World Championships in Helsinki.
“I feel I have to concentrate on my running to become the best of the world again. And that is my aim of course. I want to dominate and I hate to loose, as all athletes do,” confirmed Jones yesterday.
On Sunday, Jones will run the 100m. “It’s an honour to be in a meeting which commemorates Fanny Blankers-Koen.”
“It took me a couple of months to come over the disappointment of Athens,” Jones admitted. “But afterwards I can accept that it takes time to come back if you have giving birth to a child. Tim is almost two years old now. He’s doing fine, but a baby always gives stress to the parents.”
“I’m where I want to be at this time of the season,” Jones believes. “The time I did run in Martinique - 11.28 - doesn’t bother me at all. I want to win races and that’s what I did there.”
In Hengelo, Jones will have to beat amongst others, Chandra Sturrup and Savatheda Fynes to win again.
Alekna to dominate the infield
Other highlights of the Fanny Blankers-Koen Games will be the 3000m Steeplechase with Brimin Kipruto and Paul Koech, who are the reigning Olympic silver and bronze medallists.
While in the infield whose competitions, as ever at this meeting, have taken a relative back seat to the track events, there is a name to rank alongside Bekele’s for athletic prowess.
Lithuania’s Virgilijius Alekna, the World and Olympic Discus Throw champion will be the star of the show. The 33 year-old who retained his Olympic title in Athens last summer, has started is 2005 season in fine shape and looks on course to also successfully defend his World Championship this summer in Helsinki. He opened on 22 April with a 69.06 win, and has since had two more competitions, both victories, the worst result being 67.91m.
Cors van den Brink and Chris Turner for the IAAF
