Kenenisa Bekele resurfaces along the Thames to finish second in the London Marathon | Sports

Through the Mall of London, avenue of kings and emperors, rides Kenenisa Bekele, who did not die as an athlete, as many assumed, and the hearts of the great fans leap with joy. One of the greats resurfaces. Time stops, eternal. It doesn’t matter that the impossible love of one of the great athletes in history with one of the most important marathons is perpetuated. It’s okay to almost think that destiny is not in anyone’s hands to change it, even if it hurts. It is the sixth participation of the Ethiopian marathoner, who will turn 42 in June, in the marathon along the Thames. He never won it. Nor this cool spring Sunday in London, where, after launching the attack that broke the test after kilometer 35, he gave in in the last two kilometers to the change of pace of the Kenyan Alexander Mutiso Munyao, who won with a time of 2h 4m 1s. In just 14 seconds (2h 4m 15s) Bekele arrived.

Four seconds less than in Valencia, the marathon highway, last December, its best mark since 2019.

Once, many years ago, eight, Bekele was third in London, when few doubted that, just as in the 5,000m and 10,000m, and in cross country, he had been invincible (three Olympic golds, 20 world titles), with his late jump to the Marathon would also become the heir of his compatriot Haile Gebrselassie, the last in the dynasty born of Abebe Bikila. He was also second in 2017 and was fifth and sixth after that and a year ago he retired. And many buried him. His kingdom was no longer of this world. He never really had been. His career on the asphalt coincided with that of Eliud Kipchoge, who took over the world record (2h 1m 9s) and the 2016 and 2021 Olympic titles, and with the emergence of atomic sneakers, models with wide, soft soles that They respond like springs with which some have the sensation of flying. Everyone was doing well, records fell one after another. Not to Bekele, who was injured and his natural stride suffered. In 2019 the planets aligned for him on an autumn day in Berlin. He won with 2h 1m 41s. He broke the Ethiopian record, but was 2s short of the world record. Five years later, he is still the third best brand in history.

The Ethiopian marathon runner, wearing Chinese-made shoes, like everyone else, and Chinese brands too, is resurrected as a marathon powerhouse in a time of crisis. A year ago, Kipchoge was still untouchable despite having suffered a painful defeat in Boston, and Kelvin Kiptum, 23, a brilliant lightning bolt who in London, in his second marathon, achieved a time of 2h 1m 16s, just 15s behind the Kenyan world record. Kipchoge was not reborn. Kiptum continued his meteoric career, breaking the world record in Chicago and approaching the two-hour line of fire, making his break inevitable (2h 35s). Last January, a life as fast as he marathoned, he was killed in a traffic accident. At this sad crossroads, the marathon finds in Bekele a figure with which to get excited again. Bekele’s dream of saying goodbye at the Paris Olympic marathon, which seemed so utopian when he verbalized it in December at the Valencia marathon, not only seems possible, but necessary.

Women’s record

One more record fell in the women’s event, in which the Kenyan Peres Jepchirchir won. The Olympic champion’s mark (2h 16m 16s) represents a new world record in a marathon run only by women (unlike other marathons, in which women can run with male hares, in London they run alone, without men around) , 45s less than the one that her compatriot Mary Keitany set next to the Thames in 2017 (2h 17m 1s). The one in London is the third big by Jepchirchir, 30, revealed in the 2020 Valencia marathon, after her victories in New York (2021) and Boston (2022). Her attack in the last kilometer, a spectacular change of pace that even made her rivals tremble, was too much for Tigst Assefa, the absolute world record holder (2h 11m 53s, Berlin 2023), who finished second (2h 16m 23s ).

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