Bekele stays two seconds behind the marathon world record

[G h o s t l y.]

Only Kenenisa Bekele, one of the greatest fondistas the world has ever known can finish a marathon in 2h 1m 41s and regret it like this: "It's a shame, I'm not a lucky man." The brand is not the best in history, only the second, tremendously close (2 seconds) from the world record (2h 1m 39s) that Eliud Kipchoge set a year ago.

While in Doha the marathoners jog more than they run glued by the sweat to the ground and with fear of perishing, in the marathon of Berlin, autumnal weather, plain, dry and fresh breeze, as always, fly free and approach excellence. Thus, the great veteran Bekele, one of the best fondistas in history, who, at 37 years old and armed with atomic slippers - those with a spring in the template allow energy savings and efficiency gains of more than 5 % - ran the best marathon of his life. He ran so fast (2h 1m 41) that he was alone in two seconds of the world record that a year ago, on the same route, with equal shoes, beat the Kenyan Kipchoge. That day, on September 16, 2018, the world of athletics hallucinated; This Sunday, while still having his mouth open, he has nothing left but to finally realize that the marathon has entered a new era in which the limits are blurred. More than a minute after Bekele came Legese, who, with 2h 2m 48s, is left with the third best mark in history.

With an irregular race that seemed to have lost at kilometer 31, when he could not respond to the change of pace of his compatriot Birhanu Legese, who then seemed to be chosen to break the mark he believed impossible of Kipchoge, Bekele refused, regained ground, surpassed ground, surpassed to Legese and reached kilometer 40 (partial of 14m 20s and 14m 15s, from 30 to 35 and from 35 to 40) with a time of 1h 55m 30s, 2s better than that of Kipchoge a year ago. But Kipchoge then accelerated and took 4s less to travel the last 2,195 meters to the Brandenburg Gate. Thus ended the ninth marathon that started, the seventh that ended, since 2014, the year he left the tartan and jumped on the asphalt.

“This is very good to improve my personal brand, but I think I can still with this, with the registration. I will not stop fighting him. This result motivates me for the future, ”said Bekele. “Only three months ago I was still recovering from an injury and my preparation was not 100%. I felt a little pain at the beginning, so I stayed behind, but after a few kilometers, I managed to relax and I could pull a little harder. ”