Kenenisa Bekele clears all obstacles for cross-country crown

By Mitch Phillips, Reuters

EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND – Kenenisa Bekele overcame illness, a dislodged shoe and the presence of a nervous wife to win a record sixth long course cross country world title on Sunday and confirm last year’s shock defeat was an aberration.

BKenenisa set a record with his sixth
overall world long-course title. (Photo: Getty)

Sunday’s success took his tally to a remarkable 11 senior world cross titles, with the only blip coming when he dropped out with heat exhaustion in Mombasa last year and watched Eritrea’s Zersenay Tadese take his title.

There was no danger of a repeat with regard to the climate on Sunday in a cold and windy Scottish capital, though Tadese did threaten a second success with a strong, front-running performance in the early stages.

The Eritrean was helped when Bekele had to stop to replace his shoe, half torn off after being clipped by another runner, but the Ethiopian recovered smoothly and eventually won handsomely, with Tadese relegated to third behind Kenya’s Leonard Patrick Komon.

“After stopping to put my shoe back on I was thinking a lot about it, trying to focus and control my race because if I had tried to catch up too quickly it wouldn’t have worked,” Bekele told a news conference.

“But when I got back up with the leaders I was happy to sit back where I could monitor them and where I could get some shelter from the wind.

“I was more concerned about my stomach,” added Bekele, who was ill in London on Friday having missed his connecting flight from Addis Ababa.

“Last night I wasn’t feeling good and I was up four times to go to the toilet so I knew it was going to be tough. It was hard with the mud too but it was the same for everyone so it didn’t bother me too much.”

Bekele showed the classic cross-country combination of speed and strength when he forged clear on the penultimate ascent of Haggis Knowe, a fierce climb that split the field in every race on Sunday.

ADULATION

He then piled on the pressure to cross the line well clear and began to accept the adulation.

“I’ve won double gold medals five times at this competition but this one was very special for me,” he said.

“This record sixth title is a high honour in my life but who it compares to I’ll leave for others to judge.”

The presence of his wife, Ethiopian film actress Danawit Gebregziabher, watching him live at a major event for the first time, also seemed more of a distraction than a support.

“Somebody told me afterwards that when my shoe came off she nearly fainted so it did add a lot of pressure,” he said.

Bekele can now turn his attention to Beijing, where he is likely to defend his 10,000 metres title and might also attempt the 5,000.

Before then, however, he has the African championships in May on home soil in Addis, where, along with the three other Ethiponian individual gold medallists on Sunday, he will almost certainly turn out.

“To not race would be like putting on a great feast and being the guest of honour and then not turning up,” he said.

“It’s a bit close to this so it won’t be easy but I do believe I have to take part, though I’m not sure what distance.”

Still only 25, Bekele’s appetite for competition remains undimmed and the world and Olympic champion and multi-world record holder says he has set no time limit on his career.

“I have accomplished a lot but I want to keep competing at this level for a long time,” he said. “I want to go on as long as I can and leave a legacy to the sport.”

By Richard Pankhurst

Ethiopia deserves an honorable place in the great history of chess which appears to have been traditionally popular in court circles and among the nobility. The game was known in Amharic as {www:Senterej}, a name borrowed from the Arabs who called it Shatranj, a corruption of the Persian Chatrang, itself derived from the Sanskrit chaturanga.

In the early sixteenth century the Emperor Lebua Dengel (1508-1540) is said to have played chess as well as cards with the Venetian artist Gregorio or Hieronimo Bicini, as was related by the Ethiopian ecclesiastic, Brother Thomas of Ganget, in his conversations with the Italian Alessandro Zorzi.1

Sahle Sellassie, the early nineteenth century King of Shoa, was another notable chess player. The French travellers Comkes and Tamisier, who visited Ethiopia in 1835-37, relate that he used to play in the evening with one of his courtiers, who, they allege, always took care to allow his master to win.2 Sahle Sellassie’s habit of playing chess is also referred to in Gabre Sellassie’s chronicle of the reign of Menelik II where it is stated that the latter sovereign declared that his ancestor had prophesied the establishment of Addis Ababa while he was at play, sitting under a tree in the Filwoha area.3

A quarter of a century earlier the British traveller Henry Salt, writing of his visit to Tigre in 1809-10, says that Ras Walde Sellassie, the ruler of that province, was a great chess man. He points out, however, that the game then played in Ethiopia ” differed more from ours than we at first supposed.” Ethiopian chess in fact was the old game as it had existed in other parts of the world before the changes which occurred in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

In the olden days there was no Queen, instead there was a piece called farz or firz, also known as farzan, farzin and farzie, signifying a ” counsellor,” ” minister ” or ” general.” The name was subsequently Latinized into farzie or fercia, and rendered into French as fierce or fiege, after which it is supposed to have been called vierge, or ‘virgin,’ and is thought by extension to have become a woman and hence a Queen. Another theory was that as the pawn was promoted on reaching the eighth square to become a farz, this piece was conceived of like the dame in draughts, and for this reason became known as a Queen. The farz traditionally moved only one square diagonally and was consequently the weakest piece on the board, the Queen’s present immense power only being acquired in the middle of the fifteenth century.4
Salt suggests that in early nineteenth century Ethiopia the game was still more or less played as of old for he says: ” the Queen moves diagonally, and only one square at a time.” He adds that ” the Castles either have not the same power in the European games, or the players do not make use of them so frequently, nor do they seem to value a Castle as much as a Knight.”

The Emperor Theodore’s friend and adviser, Walter Plowden,5 who wrote half a century later, has left a more detailed account of the game as he saw it played in the middle of the nineteenth century. He says that the chessboard, which had of course 64 squares as in Europe, was generally made of a piece of red cloth with squares marked out by strips of ivory black sewn at equal distances. This fact would suggest that the game, or at least the type of chessboard, was introduced after the thirteenth century because before that time the board is said to have been of only one colour. The chessmen, Plowden continues, were made of ivory, hippopotamus tusk or horn. Those of ivory or hippopotamus tusk were ” ponderous and massive,” while those of horn were much lighter. All, however, were simply made, without ornament or fancy work, their differences ” being just sufficient to mark the distinction of the pieces.”

Describing the powers and arrangements of the pieces he explains that the derr or Castles, stood at each corner of the board and moved exactly like Castles in other countries. Next to them, as elsewhere, stood the Knights who corresponded exactly to Knights as he knew them. Next to them came the pheel, or Bishop. This term was borrowed from the Arabic fil, a variant of the Persian pil, the word for elephant. According to Plowden this piece moved obliquely, like an ordinary Bishop, but could only advance over three squares including its own; it could not stop at the King’s second square, even if vacant; it could, however, pass over any interposing piece on that square or any other. Turning to the centre of the pieces Plowden states that the King, or Negus, had the same power as in Europe but was placed slightly differently, the two Kings facing each other exactly instead of being on different colours.

The furz (or counsellor above described) stood next to the King. He confirms that it had only the very limited power of moving one square in any direction, and could only take obliquely. The pawns, or medaks, were moved, he said, as in Europe and there was no obligation to take them. On reaching the eighth square they acquired the powers of a furz as was the case, as we have seen, in the old game.

Discussing the technique of the game, Plowden says, that it started in a “a singular manner” and one which often enabled the good player to gain a decisive advantage. Both parties, he says, moved as many pieces as they could lay their hands on, presumably not in alternate order but simultaneously, until the first pawn was taken. Though at this stage of the game a stranger might suppose there was great confusion the player in fact keenly watched the moves of his opponent, and changed his tactics accordingly, frequently withdrawing the moves he had already made and substituting others so as to be in the most favourable position at the moment of the first take whether his own or his adversary’s. After the first piece was taken the game proceeded more or Ethiopian Chess—less as in Europe. The convention was that the move was not considered settled until the player had placed the piece on the square and removed his hands from it.

Another distinctive feature of Ethiopian chess was that all forms of checkmate were not considered equally honourable. Checkmate by Castles or Knights we are told was ” considered unworthy of the merest tyro,” that is to say these pieces, though assisting in throwing the net round the enemy, were supposed not to deal the fatal stroke though the use of the Knight was ” just endurable.”
Checkmate with a single Bishop was ” tolerably good,” but with two was applauded. Mating with one, two, or especially three or four pawns was considered the ne plus ultra of the game.

Checkmate was considered particularly meritorious if the adversary had not been denuded of all his superior pieces, and in fact it was'”almost necessary to leave him with two,” for it was customary for him when reduced to one, say Bishop or Knight, to start counting his moves, it being expected that the King should be mated before he had made seven moves with that piece. This piece moreover, could not be taken as the game was considered drawn as soon as one side had lost all its capital pieces without having been checkmated. Obstruction by the last of these pieces frequently made it impossible to finish the game in the time allowed or obliged the player to ” give an ignominious mate ” with a Castle of Knight which was ” hailed almost as a triumph by the foe.” A good player, therefore, found it advisable to leave his adversary two good pieces, such as a Castle and Bishop or Castle and Knight, for if he left him a furz and Bishop, for example, he would probably be forced to take one in self-defence.

1 O G S Crawford ” Ethiopian Itineraries,” 1958, “p. 21.
2 E Combes arid M. Tamisier, Voyage en Abyssinie, 1838, Vol III, p. 17.
3 Guebre Sellassie, Chronicle du Regne de Menelik II, 1930. Vol.. p, 233. Ill, p. 111.
4 George Viscount Valentia, Voyages and Travels, 1811, Vol.
5 W. O. Plowden, Travels in Abyssinia, 1868, pp. 149-51.

(IAAF) EDINBURGH (29-Mar) — Five-time double IAAF World Cross Country champion Kenenisa Bekele has yet to arrive here, but his presence is already felt. His flight from Addis Ababa arrived late, allowing him only 30 minutes at London’s Heathrow Airport to connect for his flight to Edinburgh this morning. (Anyone who has been to Heathrow knows that even one hour there is barely enough time to change planes).

But no matter, because the mighty Ethiopian can skip the course tour. He’s already won three invitational races on the Holyrood Park circuit, the last coming less than three months ago.

“I have experience of the course here in Edinburgh, and have won the annual race here on three occasions,” Bekele told the IAAF’s Chris Turner via telephone as he waited for his flight. “So, my travel delay does not worry me.”

What may worry the three-time world 10,000m champion is defending champion Zersenay Tadese of Eritrea who defeated Bekele in the absurd heat and humidity of Mombassa last year. Dizzy and confused from the heat, Bekele was forced to abandon that race, snapping his win streak at five and putting his team out of the medal hunt because they only had five athletes finish the race (six men are needed to score in the senior race).

Tadese, who was on hand for this morning’s press conference, finished just one second behind Bekele at the Event Scotland Great Edinburgh Cross Country last January 12. Speaking carefully in English, Tadese was restrained in his comments, but projected a quiet confidence.

“Actually, I’m ready for this competition,” said Tadese, who is also the reigning IAAF World Road Running champion. He added: “Actually, Kenenisa is a strong athlete. But, I’m ready. I’ll try my best.”

There is little doubt that African men will continue their dominance of this competition which only features 65 nations and an anemic turnout of athletes and teams from Europe. In 1973 85% of the athletes in these championships were from Europe. That share has fallen to 29% this year. Germany hasn’t entered a single athlete, France only one, and Italy only four. None of host country Great Britain’s top distance running stars (Paula Radcliffe, Mara Yamauchi, Mo Farah or Jo Pavey) are entered.

“The issue for me is a coaching issue,” commented two-time Olympic 1500 gold medalist Sebastian Coe, who said that in his day a cross country season was de rigueur for all middle and long distance runners. “Now, coaches don’t see any relevance for performance on the track.”

Scotswoman Liz McColgan, who won silver in these championships in 1987 and bronze in 1991, thinks the Europeans can get back in the medal hunt, but a renewed focus will be required. “I do believe we can beat them,” she said of the Africans who value these championships so highly. “It just goes back to old training patterns and putting in the hard work,” she said.

While certainly not a two-man race, there is little doubt that others hoping to make the medal stand will key off Bekele and Tadese. Of great interest is the very young Kenyan team who hope to defend their team title. When Bekele faltered last year, the Kenyans scored an overwhelming win with a scant 29 points, to second place Morocco’s 152. Bernard Kipyego, the individual bronze medalist from last year, is back on the team, as are Gideon Ngatuny and Hosea Macharinyang, who were fourth and fifth last year. Mubarak Hassan Shami, the former Kenyan Richard Yatich who now runs for Qatar, should also be in the hunt for a medal.

Dibaba Leads Ethiopian Cross Country Machine

Tirunesh Dibaba, who was soundly defeated by Kenyan-born Dutchwoman Lornah Kiplagat last year, comes to Edinburgh as the women’s favorite. Backed up by teammates Meselech Melkamu and Gelete Burka, third and fourth, respectively, at last year’s championships, the Ethiopians have a good chance of sweeping the podium.

Dibaba has been training at home in Ethiopia where the winter has been unusually cold, which may help her with the chilly conditions here. “I want to win,” she said through a translator. “I want to make them (the Ethiopian fans) proud.” She added: “In Addis it has been cold. Our team will be very strong; we have Burka we have Melkamu. You will see tomorrow.”

The 36th IAAF World Cross Country Championship kicks off tomorrow with the Welcome the World 5 km road race at 11:00 followed by the opening ceremony at 12:15. Racing gets underway with the Junior Women at 13:00 (6 km), the Junior Men at 13:30 (8 km), the Senior Women at 14:05 (8 km) and the Senior Men at 14:45 (12 km).

The all-grass course has one steep hill, rising from 5 to 20 meters in only 100 meters of running. That hill will be done twice in the 6 km and 8 km races, and four times in the 12 km race. The rest of the course is quite flat. Footing was very solid this morning, but heavy rain is expected for later today which could soften the course for tomorrow’s races. The course can be expected to be in the worst shape for the senior men’s race which comes last.

Individual gold medalists in the senior races will receive USD 30,000 ($15,000 for silver and $10,000 for bronze), and the winning senior teams will be paid $20,000.

Isn’t this a case of misguided economic policy? Why don’t they grow teff, wheat, corn, and other food crops for the local market to feed the millions of starving people at home first before providing flowers to European markets?

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By Jason McLure, Bloomberg — Ethiopia may export $186 million in flowers to Europe, Asia, and the Middle East this year, the Ethiopian Producer Exporters Association said.

Exports last year are estimated at $125 million, Kassahun Mammo, executive director of the association, said in an interview in the capital, Addis Ababa, today.

“This is a sector where we can generate foreign exchange for the country,” he said.

Flower production in Ethiopia, Africa’s second-biggest exporter of the blooms after Kenya, is increasing since the government offered farmers incentives to start flower farms, including waiving duties on imported machinery and grace periods for tax payments.

Ethiopia began exporting flowers in 2001-02, when income totaled $159,000. Exports soared to $2.9 million the following year.
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To contact the reporter on this story: Jason McLure in Addis Ababa via the Johannesburg bureau at [email protected].

(Reuters) — China will invest 5-billion Yuan to build Ethiopia’s first industrial park, part of a plan to help the Horn of Africa nation mimic the Asian giant’s rapid economic growth, an Ethiopian minister said.

Up to 80 Chinese companies involved in textiles, leather and manufacturing construction equipment are expected to invest in the industrial zone being built at Dukem, 37 km (23 miles) east of the capital Addis Ababa.

“The construction of the industrial zone will help Ethiopia emulate China’s 20 years of accelerated development,” Trade and Industry Minister Tadesse Haile told Reuters on Friday.

Due to be built on a 5 sq km (2 sq mile) plot over the next five years, the China-Africa Development Fund is financing the project.

China is investing heavily in Africa and has won favour among many governments who prefer its no-strings-attached policy towards aid, in contrast to Western governments that usually place conditions on its donations.

China sees Africa as a key frontier for selling its goods and acquiring resources like oil and metals to help feed its fast growing economy.

Ethiopia has forecast economic growth of nearly 11 percent in 2008 after expanding at an official rate of 10 percent annually for the last five years.

The country of more than 80 million remains one of the world’s poorest and depends on agriculture for half of gross domestic product, 60 percent of exports and 80 percent of total employment.