Bekele Comes Within Seconds In Berlin, Shelly-Ann Frazier-Price A Likely 100m Winner and A USA Sweep In The 800m?

It’s been a long day, and while I initially set out to recap day 3 of Doha where we say the building blocks for an American sweep in the 800m, but I can not ignore what Kenenisa Bekele did in Berlin this morning.

I have to eat crow on this one, last year on this very blog I put it out there that Bekele should think about stepping aside after a horrendous showing in Amsterdam. I can only assume that he read that piece and was extremely motivated to prove me wrong and it has nothing to do with Bekele finally putting together an injury-free training cycle. Let’s look at the splits, how did Bekele come so close to the World Record without the pacing infrastructure that Eliud Kipchoge enjoyed in 2018? Well, he had to race for it.

The old narrative was about to pop it’s head out again as Bekele fell behind Berhanu Legese by as much as 13 seconds at one point, however when Bekele is fit he is no stranger to winning from behind. In fact, I would say one of his strengths as a runner is his ability to chase down a runner and use that momentum to propel him into an all-time great finish. That blueprint is what we saw today, be Bekele would catch Legese and complete one of the greatest marathon finishes of all time.