Just two kilometres later, he pushed the pace with fellow Ethiopian Tamirat Tola joining him at the front. Instead they went through 13.1 miles in 1:02:09, still incredibly quick, and two of the pacemakers dropped out, leaving nine runners up front, including remaining pacemaker Kipruto.Īt 25km, passed in 1:13:53, Kipruto dropped out which left Bekele as the leader. The group had been whittled down to 12 runners at 15km, which was passed in 44:15, and it soon became clear that they wouldn’t hit the somewhat optimistic pre-race target of hitting the half-way mark in 1:01:40. Headed by three pacemakers – Abraham Kiplimo, Silas Kipruto and Erick Leon Ndiema – Bekele was one of a large group of about 16 runners as they went through 5km in 14:43 and 10km in 29:35, suggesting a possible finish time of about 2:04:50. Now it looks as though he is well on his way to doing that.īekele and his agent Jos Hermens had explained this week that part of their reason for choosing this race over any other is that Paris organisers were able to build the race around Bekele, whereas in London he would have simply been one of the many other star runners.

Having won global titles on the track outdoors and indoors, as well as on cross country, road running was the only area of distance running that Bekele had not yet conquered.

His dreams may not have turned into reality at the IAAF Gold Label Road Race, but his triumph in a course record of 2:05:04 was far from a nightmare.

The dream, said Kenenisa Bekele before the Schneider Electric Marathon de Paris, would be to break the world record on his marathon debut.

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