By CHRISTOPHER CLAREY | The New York Times
BERLIN — It is the age of Usain Bolt in track and field, as Bolt reminds us by showing off before and after he blows away world records and fields of fast, muscular men. But there is a more subtle message and athlete equally worthy of our attention at these world championships.
“What more can I do?” Kenenisa Bekele said Wednesday.
On the track, Bolt and Bekele — Jamaica’s finest and Ethiopia’s finest — are polar opposites. Bolt dominates the shortest distance, 100 meters. Bekele dominates the longest, 10,000. Bolt is tall and wired for self-amusement. Bekele is small, not muscular and, despite some recent attempts to summon his inner showman, comfortable keeping his thoughts to himself.
But they are both racking up Olympic and world championship gold medals and thwarting inspired opposition. Bolt did it to Tyson Gay in the 100 meters on Sunday and Bekele did it to Zersenay Tadese in the 10,000 on Monday, when Tadese took the only tactically sound option available and tried to wear out Bekele before the final lap.
Bekele, smooth to the point of hypnotic, continued to glide comfortably along on Tadese’s heels, brutally fast lap after brutally fast lap. And when it was time for the last lap, the 25th, Bekele accelerated on command to win his fourth consecutive world championship in the 10,000.
“When he kicks like that, there’s nothing you can do,” Tadese said.
Many athletes hit the finish and shut down, having timed their effort and measured their reserves to the meter. But Bekele looked capable of continuing to run if some mischievous soul had extended the finish line. It is his hallmark, apparent when I first saw him run and win the world cross-country championships on a converted horse racing track in Dublin in 2002.
“The man has a special talent for someone so young,” said Wilberforce Talel, one of the Kenyans whom Bekele beat that weekend.
More than seven years later, Bekele, who is still only 27, has not squandered that talent. He has never lost at 10,000 meters and holds world records in the 5,000 and the 10,000 that once belonged to his Ethiopian measuring stick, Haile Gebrselassie. In a sign of his versatility, Bekele has won 11 individual gold medals at the world cross-country championships, which matter to Ethiopians.
Like Bolt, Bekele pulled off a rare individual double at last year’s Olympics in Beijing, winning the 5,000 and the 10,000. And like Bolt, who cruised comfortably into the 200 final Wednesday night by winning his semifinal in 20.08 seconds, Bekele will be trying for another double in Berlin. On Wednesday he confirmed that he would try to become the first man to win the 5,000 and the 10,000 at a world championships.
Bekele may make it look easy, but it should not be taken lightly. Consider Tirunesh Dibaba, the Ethiopian woman who doubled in the 5,000 and the 10,000 in Beijing and who was unable to start either race here because of a left foot injury.
“The timing is right; it’s a good challenge for me,” Bekele said. “Nobody’s done this, and I like the chance to be the best in history.”
But Bekele and his camp know that even if he pulls off the double, he will not steal much of Bolt’s thunder.
“It’s a pity, because it’s like a Bolt party,” said Bekele’s manager, Jos Hermens.
Bekele said: “People like the 100 meters more maybe. If you are a successful fast man, you are getting more attention. But I can’t do anything about that. I really don’t know what else I can do.”
Winning the 5,000 on Sunday would help. So would following the Gebrselassie template by enduring, excelling and continuing to test negative. There is more oversight now than in the 1990s when there was no testing for EPO, the performance-boosting drug abused in many endurance sports.
But what separates Bekele, like Gebrselassie, from the pack is not just his medal count. It is his elegant style, which makes you forget just how demanding distance running at this level ought to be.
It has not always been easy for Bekele. In 2005, his fiancée, Alem Techale, collapsed and died during a training run with Bekele in Ethiopia, and Bekele carried her lifeless body in a vain search for help. Bekele is now married to the Ethiopian actress Danawit Gebregziabher.
After his triumph in Beijing, he pushed himself too hard in an attempt to set a 15-kilometer road record, developing a bone bruise in his ankle in November. “It was close to a stress fracture,” Hermens said. “He missed three or four months of proper training.”
But after skipping the world cross-country championships in Jordan, he looks to be back in peak form and may even go after his 5,000 world record, 12 minutes 37.35 seconds, in the one-night meet in Zurich this month.
He and Gebrselassie, friendly but not friends, represent a continuum. Bekele’s plan is to stay on the track through the 2012 Olympics and then move on to the roads and the marathon, where Gebrselassie now makes his living and where he set the world record, 2:03:59, last year.
“It’s good that he has Haile to compare himself with,” said Hermens, the Dutchman who manages them both.
Their paths overlapped early in Bekele’s career, when he beat Gebrselassie in the 10,000 at the 2003 world championships and in the 2004 Olympics, but it is unlikely that they will overlap much on the road.
So Bekele is still looking not just for a challenge but a challenger. “I’m still waiting to see who is beating me,” he said.
For now, fair or unfair, he is losing only to Bolt.