Mekonnen
is ready to make the 5000 metres count
Sabrina Yohannes for the IAAF
10 August 22001 - Edmonton - The drive Hailu Mekonnen has for the 5000-metre
event was on display when the Ethiopian fell during the world championship
qualifier Monday, but won his heat. Mekonnen, who holds the fastest 2001 time in
the field for the final, moved back to the event after contesting the 1500
metres repeatedly, including at the Sydney Olympics, where he missed qualifying
for the final.
“That’s enough for the 1500,” said Mekonnen. “It was tried, it didn’t work.”
The holder of the world indoor two-mile best, Mekonnen was subdued in Sydney after the 1500-metre semi-final, but resolved then that he was moving to the longer event. “I never had a love for the 1500,” he said. “It’s just that I had the speed, and when I was asked to run the 1500, I did.”
“It’s a pity that it was in an Olympic year,” said Mekonnen’s manager, Jos Hermens, who regretted somewhat his having encouraged Mekonnen to stick with the shorter event. “It’s good he went for the speed for the 1500,” added Hermens. “But maybe he could have had an Olympic medal.”
Mekonnen is a team player, whose breakthrough year was 1999, when he filled in for a missing member of the Ethiopian men’s 4K team, potentially jeopardizing his chance for a gold medal the next day in the junior 6K race in which he had taken bronze a year earlier. But he successfully pulled off the double, winning the junior title he was favored for, in addition to an unexpected bronze in the 4K.
On the track, Mekonnen ran the 5000 metres at the 1998 African Championships, placing second, and at the 1999 world championships, finishing seventh, but won the African Games 1500 in 1999. After heeding everyone else’s advice to stay with the shorter distance, Mekonnen is now back chasing the prize he really wants and hopes to make up for Sydney. “It makes me work harder,” he said.
“It’s changed his personality,” said Hermens. “After his decision, he’s a new Hailu. He’s confident.” Mekonnen won two 5000-metre races this season, clocking a personal best 12:58.57 in Rome. His Edmonton teammate Abiyot Abate also ran a personal best, 13:00.36, in the same race.
“Five of us went there, 5000-metre runners, and three of us passed for these championships,” said Abate, who was a reserve for the Sydney 5000-metre team, but will now be in the Edmonton final. “I’m delighted,” he said.
The reigning Olympic champion and Mekonnen’s teammate, Million Wolde, finished seventh in Rome, but has been preparing hard for the championships and finished second in his heat on Monday behind Algeria’s Ali Saidi-Sief. “I’ve trained well,” said Wolde, who singled out Saidi-Sief along with Kenya’s Sammy Kipketer as the ones to watch in the final. Kipketer did not qualify automatically for the final, but made it in with his time.
Mekonnen took no chances in his heat, moving close to the front of the field after he took the fall early on. “I’m scraped all over,” he said, raising each knee and pointing to the scrapes. “It was to avoid being tripped that I moved to the front.”
“The race was good,” he said. “But it will make me happier when Friday’s works out for me."
