Sule Utura and Azmeraw Bekele bag the Great Ethiopian Run 10km titles
Sule Utura, the 2008 World junior 5000m champion and the national Cross Country champion Azmeraw Bekele emphatically bagged the 2010 Ethiopian Airlines Great Ethiopian Run 10km race held on Sunday in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. This was the tenth anniversary
of Africa’s largest 10km race.
The media, just ahead of the 10th anniversary of the annual race in Addis Ababa, kept on dwelling upon the news of Haile Gebrselassie returning back to distance running just after one week of his announcement to retire from the sport. The news
about the great Ethiopian runner who also happens to be the race director of the Great Ethiopian Run was indeed a good one for athletics spectators around the globe, particularly for his fans. Moreover, the news was rather relevant to the big Ethiopian sport
event as it was Gebrselassie and the then British ambassador Miles Wickestead who had initiated with today’s landmark event for not only Ethiopia’s athletics but also in its social calendar.
Nine years down the line, Gebrselassie must have been impressed by the performances of Utura and Bekele who amicably held up the legacy of the grand event.
The new course of the race which had been altered to accommodate the picturesque new Gotera overpass in the city, did not help the runners in delivering new fast times for the race as the organizers had expected. However, the slightly flat overall gradation
of the course helped the athletes to depict thrilling finishes.
On women’s part of the race, Utura, who happens to be the winner of the 2010 Confidence Women first 5km race in March this year and World junior 5000m champion in 2008 made rather a light start and only managed to take lead when the leading pack of runners
had covered initial 7km of the track. Utura finished her race for thirty three minutes and 35.11 seconds, just a few seconds ahead of Afework. Ahaza Kiros, who had been the runner up of 2005 and 2006 event claimed third position for crossing the finishing
line in thirty three minutes and fifty nine seconds.
While commenting upon her emphatic win, the girl told the reporters that though she was not much prepared for the competition, she managed to win it. She revealed that before the race she heard of men and women planning to start a mixed race; the news had
tensed her amid the fears to be pushed behind. However, as the race started separately, the girl overcame her initial fears and came out of the event bagging the title. She was of the view that the new track was quite easy until she had past the halfway point
where crossing the Gotera Bridge due to comparatively stronger wind made it a bit difficult for her to keep the pace.
On men’s side, Azmeraw Bekele, the young runner participated into the race on back of his domestic impressive record which comprised of victories and prominent performances in Cross Country championships in February. The guy also grabbed the Ethiopian 15km
championships held last month in Adama. However, while running against equally young and energetic group of runners, he really had to work hard to claim his title out of the event.
Bekele’s intent to win the race became quite evident when covering after mere 2.5 km the guy started making the attempts to overdo the rivals. However, the impressive strides made by Bekele at that point were successfully countered by Dema Dana, Berhanu
Bekele and Alamerew Yenew. Comprising of the young and enthusiastic runners, the leading pack of 11 crossed the half way point in fourteen minutes and three seconds which raised the hopes for depiction of a new course record.
However, after the half way point no runner tried increasing the pace and most part of rest of the distance remained solely dominated by Seboka Negussie. It was only at the final 300 meters when Bekele decided to make the decisive moves and managed to cross
the finishing line for twenty nine minutes and twenty five seconds. He was just a second ahead of Yenew while Berhanu Bekele, with a distance of one more second finished the race for third position.
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