By Benoit Noel
HENGELO, Netherlands (AFP) — Ethiopian Haile Gebrselassie failed in an attempt to better his own world record for the one-hour run at the Hengelo Grand Prix on Monday.
After setting four world records at previous meets in the eastern Dutch city, Gebrselassie, the current marathon world record holder, was undone by blustery conditions at the Fanny Blankers-Koen Games, part of the IAAF World Athletics Tour.
The 36-year-old clocked up 20km 822metres, falling short of his record of 21km 285m which he set in June 2007 in Ostrava, the Czech Republic.
He was also little helped by pacemakers who failed to keep up with the 1min 07sec lap times needed to mount a real challenge on the record.
“The wind and rain obviously didn’t make things easy,” said Gebrselassie. “And even if the conditions were not optimal, I wasn’t at 100 percent because of a small asthmatic problem.”
Olympic 5,000 and 10,000m champion Kenenisa Bekele was running in the unfamiliar 1500m but pulled up with one lap to run with a leg injury.
The Ethiopian had chosen the 1500m to test and improve his speed in preparation for August’s World Athletics Championships in Berlin.
“Kenenisa felt a slight pain in his right thigh. He preferred to call a halt as a precaution,” said Bekele’s manager Jos Hermens.
It was Bekele’s first outing since he picked up an ankle problem when finishing a disappointing third in a 15km road race in the Netherlands in November.
The race was won by Kenyan Asbel Kiprop, the Olympic 1500m silver medallist, in 3min 34.45sec ahead of Ethiopian Deresse Mekonnen and Moroccan Mohamed Moustaoui.
There were five season best performances at the meet.
Churandy Martina of the Dutch Antilles gained revenge on Shawn Crawford in the 100m, recording 9.97 seconds as the American finished a disappointing seventh, 0.30sec off the pace.
Martina was stripped of his silver medal in the men’s 200m final in the Beijing Olympics after a protest by the United States team that he had run out of his lane.
The move deprived the Dutch Antilles of their first ever Olympic track and field medal, and saw 2004 Olympic champion Crawford take silver behind Jamaican Usain Bolt, who won the race in a world record of 19.30 seconds.
Other men’s season bests included Ethiopian Ali Abdosh in the 5000m, who topped a strong field in 12:59.56, Kenyan Brimin Kipruto in the 3000m steeplechase (8:06.46), and Panama’s Olympic champion Irving Saladino in the long jump (8.56metres).
In the women’s events, Ethiopian Gelete Burka won the 1500m in a season lead of 3:58.79.