The Ethiopian Athletics Federation (EAF), has disclosed names of the Ethiopian men’s and women’s marathon representatives in the 16th edition of the World Championship that will be staged in London the coming August.
The federation in a statement said that Tirunesh Dibaba, Mare Dibaba and Shure Demissie will represent the country in the women’s event while the men’s representatives are Kenenisa Bekele, Tamirat Tola and Tsegaye Mekonen.
The Rio Olympics marathon bronze medallist Mare Dibaba is entitled to directly take part in the women’s marathon.
The federation is hopeful that these experienced Ethiopian athletes to do their level best to gain a better standing in this most gruelling marathon race in London.
For Kenenisa the first place in Berlin Marathon and the second place in the recently concluded London marathon helped him secure a place in the national squad.
Kenenisa is the fastest man among the London marathoners with a personal best of 2:03:03, set in Berlin this Ethiopian year.
When he was dropped from the Rio Olympics most veteran athletes disputed the selection as unfair and biased but the Federation at that time refused to reconsider the move.
The Rio Olympics poor marathon result proved that the reduction of Kenenisa was wrong. It seems the federation has made correction this time for his inclusion in the squad.
For the three-Olympic gold medallist Tirunesh this will be the first major participation in marathon.
Both Tirunesh and Kenenisa are double gold medallists in 2008 Beijing Olympics in 5,000 and 10,000 metres race.
Kenenisa was the second athlete to get double medals for Ethiopia. Miruts Yifter, Popularly known as gear changer, was the first Ethiopian to get double in the 1980 Moscow Olympics.
Tirunesh is the first Ethiopian female athlete to get double gold medals to this day.
Both Tirunesh and Kenenisa have something special in common: no other Ethiopian athlete collected three Olympic gold medals to this day except the two.
In this Ethiopian year Kenenisa made big progress in the international grand meets. His London marathon performance was greatly appreciated by the national coaches including the international media outlets. Everyone was caught by surprise when he closed in on the gap with the eventual winner Kenyan Daniel Wanjiru after getting a stitch in London.
In connection to this the reporter in London wrote, “The 21-year-old Wanjuri stayed with a lead pack of four until 21 miles before striking clear. He looked set for a comfortable victory until Kenenisa suddenly picked up and started carving through the field.
“As Wanjiru went through the tunnel at the Embankment, he had the shock of his life as he saw Kenenisa closing in on the gap. With two miles remaining, Kenenisa had narrowed the gap to eight seconds. Yet he (Kenenisa) could not produce a desperate last kick to overcome a rival 13 years his junior.”
In London he is expected to improve his finishing capacity to reign as a king of the world long distance race.
For Tirunesh the London marathon helped her secure a place in the national squad. In London Tirunesh was the runner-up clocking 2:17:56 in her second marathon appearance. Aselefech Mergia won the third place in 2:23:06 in London.
The 35-year old Mary Keitany of Kenya broke Paula Radcliffe’s women’s-only world record to win the London Marathon at a time of two hours 17 minutes and one second, the second-fastest time in history.
The good thing about the current selection is the runners will get sufficient time to focus on the London big event. This is an improvement compared to the messy selection process in the run up to the 2016 Rio Olympics.
