News23 Nov 2002


Bekele’s back at record best - Double wins for Ethiopia in Chiba

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Bekele running at the 2002 World Cross Country Championships (© Getty Images)

Ethiopia won both the men's and women's sections of the 2002 International Chiba Ekiden. While their men ran away from the field and recorded the best time (1:57:53)in the history of the event, their women's squad end Japan’s 10 year winning streak.

It was all expected, the Ethiopians were the best team on paper and they won as expected. In the men's race, four of the five stage bests including the new second stage (5km) best by Kenenisa Bekele, were by Ethiopian team members. It was nearly the complete victory as they essentially led all the way.

The men's race was close only in the first stage where Dejene Birhanu of Ethiopia and Julius Maina of Kenya ran together for the most of the time after they broke away from the field early on. Then 8Km into the first stage Birhanu surged away from Maina and the Ethiopians never looked back. At the end of the 10Km first stage, Birhanu of Ethiopia (27:37) led Kenya by four seconds.

On the 5Km second stage, Kenenisa Bekele of Ethiopia, the reigning double World Cross Country Champion broke the race wide open. Bekele who started out fast by covering the first Km in 2:28 pulled away from Simon Maina of Kenya. Bekele's final time for the 5Km second stage was 13:0, nine seconds faster than the old stage record.

By the end of the second stage, Ethiopia led Kenya by over a minute. The lead for the Ethiopian team over Kenya grew to over a minute and half, by the end of stage three (25Km into the race). 

Last year, the Japanese men's winning streak ended at three wins. The main cause of their loss last year was a 54 seconds deficit they had to make up from stage two onward. The same disaster struck team Japan this year. After the first stage the team was eighth, 56 seconds behind the leader. They moved up to third by the end of stage three. However, the time differential actually grew to two minutes at the end of the third stage.

On the fourth stage Atsushi Sato of Japan, a national collegiate marathon record holder, recorded a new stage best of 13:37 and cut the Ethiopian's lead by eight seconds. He was the only non-Ethiopian to set a stage record in the ekiden. This was quite a feat considering the Ethiopian who ran this stage was 27:25 10,000m runner Gebre-egziabher Gebremariam, the World junior champion at 10000m. Before the race Sato promised that he would try to record the fastest fourth stage to match the feat of Atsushi Fujita from last year. Both Atsushi are from the same prefecture. 

But that was as close as Japan ever got to the Ethiopians. Sileshi Sihine, the anchor leg for Ethiopia increased the team's lead over the hilly 12.195Km course by running the distance in 34:52 (fastest in the stage) and brought an easy victory (by two minutes and 23 seconds) for Ethiopia.

In the final leg, Japan battled it out with the Kenyans who were five seconds ahead of Japan at the end of stage four. At the end Julius Gitahi of Kenya prevailed over Shigeru Aburaya of Japan who was running the anchor leg for the second consecutive year. Gitahi surged away from Aburaya with 800m remaining in the race and won by three seconds, but both were well behind Ethiopia. 

While the Ethiopian men's team took the lead from stage one, their women's team was not in the front until late in the fifth stage. Last year, Ethiopia and Japan ran almost neck and neck until the end of the stage three, before Yoko Shibui of Japan ran away from Merima Denboba of Ethiopia in the stage four. Japan won by 52 seconds from Ethiopia.

With a much stronger Ethiopian team to contend with this year, Japan decided to put their big gun, Kayoko Fukushi, a double silver medallist at the Asian Games, on the second stage. While the role for the Kazue Ogoshi on the lead off leg was to stay as close as possible to the leaders, Fukushi's role was to take over the lead and put the team on the roll. The strategy was supposed to bring out the full potential from the runner who followed Fukushi, and it almost worked.

As expected Sun Yinglie of China, a double gold medallist at 5000m/10000m in the Asian Games, turned in the fastest time (31:09) on the 10Km stage one. Kazue Ogoshi of Japan, 31:46 10000m runner passed the "Tasuki" (a sash made of cloth that is handed over from a runner to a runner in ekiden) in fifth place at the first hand off point to Kayoko Fukushi.

In the relatively short 5Km stage Fukushi passed four runners ahead of her and put Japan in the lead. She covered the second stage in the record 15:03 (old record was 15:21 by Kate Anderson of Australia in 1997) and did her job of putting her team in the vanguard.

Although Luminita Talpos of Romania ran the fastest third stage (32:01), Takako Kotorida of Japan kept the team in the lead after 25Km of racing.

However, in the next two stages the tide was turned by two young Ethiopians, Dibaba and Defar. In the fourth stage Tirunesh Dibaba (World Junior 5000m silver medallist) of Ethiopia cut the Japanese's lead to mere three seconds. Then 3.3Km into the fifth stage (33.3Km into the race), Meseret Defar, the reigning World Junior 3000m/5000m Champion, took over the lead from Japan for Ethiopia. Defar increased the lead to eight seconds and passed the "Tasuki" to Worknesh Kidane who increased the lead further to 35 seconds. The Ethiopian women who finished second last year won by 35 seconds in 2:14:07.

Ken Nakamura for the IAAF

Men
1)Ethiopia 1:57:53 New Record, (Old record 1:58:46 Australia, 1991) 
2)Kenya 2:00:16
3)Japan 2:00:19 
4)Russia 2:02:28
5)South Africa 2:03:17
6)Australia 2:03:35 

Women
1)Ethiopia 2:14:07
2)Japan 2:14:42
3)Romania 2:16:37
4)Russia 2:17:21
5)Chiba prefecture 2:19:40
6)China 2:20:09 

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