Kenenisa Bekele of Ethiopia wins the Olympic 10,000m final (© Getty Images)
While many of the world’s best track and field athletes are presently holidaying or at least taking some time off from training, Kenenisa Bekele the male World Athlete of the Year is already fully focused on 2005.
The acquisition of World records at 5000m (indoors and out) and 10,000m, and the Olympic 10,000m crown and 5000m silver medal made 2004 a bumper year of success for the 22 year-old Ethiopian but having taken only a ten day rest period Bekele is already back into basic conditioning and endurance training.
The World Cross Country Championships in St. Etienne/St. Galmier, France on the weekend of 19/20 March 2005 will be his first major port of call. As ever Bekele is keeping his racing plans close to his chest despite what seemed a definitive statement after his third consecutive World Cross short and long course double in Brussels last March that he would never again contest that pair of races in the same championship.
A match-up with double Olympic champion Hicham El Guerrouj, who has announced he will run the short course race in France, has been mooted but Bekele’s management team will not be drawn on this subject, though any new double ambitions would of course make such a clash inevitable.
Unlike Russian Yelena Isinbayeva, Bekele’s female counterpart as World Athlete of the Year, there has been no holidaying since Athens, and he has not even rewarded himself with a new car. Though he already drives a smart 4x4, Bekele remains a man who lives quite modestly.
Bekele’s girlfriend remains Alem Techale, the 2003 World Youth 1500m champion, but no marriage date has yet been announced. In fact the greatest concern for the World and Olympic 10,000m champion has been that Alem successfully recovers from injury, and with this in mind the pair travelled to Munich, Germany for treatment in the last month.
There has though been one major engagement (excuse the pun) for Bekele recently, as he travelled to the USA last week. There he met up with 14 other Olympic champions or medallists on Thursday, 28 October at Nike World Headquarters, to celebrate their successes in Athens this past summer. The other athletes were Justin Gatlin, Shawn Crawford, Felix Sanchez, Derrick Brew, Dwight Phillips, Tim Mack, Joanna Hayes, Tonique Williams, Francoise Mbango, Monique Hennagan, Sanya Richards, Aleen Bailey, Tayna Lawrence and Francoise Mbango.
Chris Turner for the IAAF
Kenenisa Bekele is currently number one in the IAAF World Rankings for his events, and also tops the Overall Ranking.