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CHRONIC: Athletics - Will power of a legend Gebrselassie
finally mastered the marathon
Five years after his first attempt, the Ethiopian breaks world record with a time of 2h 4m CARLOS 26s ARRIBAS - Stuttgart - 01/10/2007 limits are rubber or absent. With just three weeks apart, two athletes have traveled to the frontier of human performance world records beating the two most significant: which means the fastest man on the planet, 100 meters (Asafa Powell, 9.74 s; Rieti, September 9) and pointing to stronger faster, the marathon (42.195 kilometers) (Haile Gebrselassie , 2h 4m 26s, yesterday in Berlin at the Brandenburg Gate itself: the ultimate, 2m 57s per km over 20 km / h average speed). For Powell, Jamaica 25 years, the record came as a show of pure talent, a stage in natural evolution as an athlete, for Gebrselassie, Ethiopia, officially, 34, has come, however, by sheer stubbornness, pure product of a force of will unique. At age 34, ran the 42,195 meters over 20 kilometers per hour on average five years ago, Gebrselassie, a prodigy of the run, able to win world titles in all distances from 1,500 to 10,000 meters sensed that his days as the best on the track-double Olympic champion, triple world champion, world record holder in the 5,000 and 10,000 meters coming to an end. In its shadow, in Ethiopia itself, in its own territory athletic, with the same versatility and flexibility, growing at full speed Kenenisa Bekele. Rather than face, Gebre stepped forward, left the track and hit the road, where no physiologist doubted it, was waiting with open arms marathon record, the promise of becoming full-fledged heir Abebe Bikila, the Ethiopian athletics only myth. The shock of reality was brutal. In his marathon debut in London in 2002, broke the record but the author of the exploit was not him but the Moroccan Khalid Januchi (2h 5m 38s). He also beat his great rival on the track, the Kenyan Paul Tergat, the man who was stretched to the limit in the finals of the 10,000 for the Games of Atlanta 1996 and Sydney 2000 - who seemed to adapt better to both the distance as to the surface, the asphalt, the shoes without nails. And yet make a great time for a rookie (2h 6m 35s), depressed and hurt, crushed, Gebrselassie left the road and returned to the slopes, where Bekele, merciless, it was systematically stripped of records and titles. His low point came after the Athens Games 2004 (fifth in the 10,000 meters), which ran injured. Shortly after surgery on his Achilles tendon pain forever. Seemed closer to the resurgence and withdrawal, however, had fallen or simply to gain momentum in January 2005 began a second career, which led him yesterday to a record. "For me, running is like breathing, it is my life, "he said then, when he returned, in the half marathon. He also spoke of his desire to become a legend, Zatopek, like Bikila, the Ethiopian who won the marathon at the 1960 Rome Games barefoot and repeated in The 1964 Tokyo, spoke of his pride in seeing how it happened Bekele inspired him. A year later, in Arizona, broke the record for the half marathon (58m 55s). Two years later, just three months in Ostrava The hour record (21.285 km). And in between, a failed assault the record of the marathon, just a year ago, also in Berlin, the place where Tergat had in fact been made in September 2003 the first athlete can lose 2h 5m leaving the world record in 2h 4m 55s. Headwind in the final kilometers and the lack of hares ended Gebre hopes in 2006. Yesterday, however, conditions were nearly ideal in the German capital, which had its third record (nine years ago there also beat Brazil's Ronaldo da Costa): 16 degrees, cloudy at first, then sun, a virtually flat course (only 30 vertical meters total), 40,000 runners in the background, more than one million spectators on the streets, first-order incentives (250,000 euros of fixed output, 50,000 more to win and another 50,000 for beating the record) and five high-quality rabbits pulled the Ethiopian to kilometer 30. Previously, he had founded the record. Passage through the kilometer 10, and improved time Tergat in 2003 at 32s. The rest of the race was to keep the difference in the half marathon was exactly the same, 32s (62m 29s against 63m 1s). At the Brandenburg Gate in the line, the distance had fallen imperceptibly: 2h 4m 26s against 2h 4m 55s from Tergat. On the eve 2h 3m Gebrselassie had written when his sponsor had asked a number. "We must set ambitious goals," said the Ethiopian, who had made the appointment for 100 days of testing asphyxiating those required to put the body at a rate less than three minutes per kilometer. The detail speaks of the ambition of Gebrselassie, who is only a dream to fulfill: proclaimed in Beijing 2008 Olympic marathon champion. Then, perhaps, or before, in Dubai in February to continue moving closer still to the limits of human beings.
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