Addis Ababa, March 19, 2025 (FMC) – After crossing the finish line in the unseasonable heat of the Saint-Galmier Hippodrome 20 years ago today, 19 March 2005, Kenenisa Bekele was unable to hold back the tears as he reached the shade of the grandstand on the horse racing track in south-eastern France.
They did not spring from the joy of having just won a seventh successive senior world cross country title, a hard-earned victory in the men’s 4.2km short race on the opening day of the 2005 edition of the World Athletics Cross Country Championships.
“She’s in my heart,” the disconsolate Ethiopian said, pressing his right hand to his breast. “She’s in my heart.”
The memory of Alem Techale had been with Bekele in the indoor arenas of Boston and Birmingham in the preceding two months, when he was a forlorn shadow of the runner whom even the world record book had been unable to contain in 2004. That was the year in which he succeeded Haile Gebrselassie, his icon of a compatriot, as the fastest 5000m and 10,000m runner of all time, and as Olympic 10,000m champion.
In a 3000m race in Boston on 29 January, Bekele miscounted the laps and sprinted for the line when he still had a circuit to complete. He was overtaken and beaten by Alastair Cragg of Ireland.
He was a similarly befuddled figure in a two-mile race in Birmingham on 19 February, trudging across the line behind his fellow Ethiopian Markos Geneti with his head bowed, making the sign of the cross.
“It is difficult for me to think about running,” Bekele said, fighting back the tears when trackside in the English West Midlands. “I can only think about my girlfriend.”
The spirit of his long-time girlfriend, his late fiancée, was with him too when he somehow rediscovered his winning touch midway through the short course race in the scorching French sunshine.
It had been just over two months since the fateful day that Techale collapsed while on a morning training run with Bekele in the Ararat Hills on the outskirts of Addis Ababa.
Bekele managed to carry her to his truck but she was pronounced dead on arrival at hospital. An autopsy determined that she had suffered a heart attack.
Techale was just 18. She won the girls’ 1500m at the 2003 World U18 Championships in Sherbrooke, Canada, where Usain Bolt claimed his first international title in the boys’ 200m. She and Bekele were due to marry on 8 May.
Bekele was 22 at the time. Grief-stricken, he had spent more time at Techale’s graveside than in training before deciding to press ahead with the planned defence of his long and short course world cross country titles in Saint-Galmier.
The defining moment of his running career
A double winner at the previous three championships (in Dublin in 2002, Lausanne in 2003 and Brussels in 2004), the diminutive Ethiopian set out with intent etched upon his face but found himself trailing by some 30 metres when Saif Saaeed Shaheen launched a long-range attack entering the second of the two laps.
On a dirt track circuit peppered with logs, some cluttered together at eight-metre intervals (“a serpentine, hump-filled course for humans”, as The New York Times vividly described it), the Qatari holder of the 3000m steeplechase world record had reason to feel in his element.
In temperatures of 27°C, however, Shaheen felt the heat of Bekele’s blistering counter-attack.
From deep within himself, Bekele summoned the energy to close the gap. He crossed the finish line, to thunderous applause, in 11:33, five seconds clear of Kenya’s Abraham Chebii, the wilting Shaheen fading to fourth.
“It was not quite Bekele at his relentless, smooth-striding best, but it would well prove to be the defining moment of his running career,” The Independent on Sunday ventured.
“It’s greater than my Olympic victory in Athens,” Bekele reflected later, having regained his composure. “It’s more significant because of what has happened. Joy comes frequently in life, but grief of this level is something you encounter only rarely. I have grief in my heart and I have joy.”
Devastating turn of speed
If Bekele’s short course victory had been a triumph of the human spirit, then the successful defence of his long course crown 24 hours later suspended belief even further. With fresh men and fresh legs to challenge him in the punishing 12km event, it was surely unreasonable to expect a double title for a fourth consecutive year? But, then, the young Ethiopian prince of distance running has always possessed the power to push beyond perceived boundaries.
Eliud Kipchoge – winner of the world 5000m title ahead of Hicham El Guerrouj and Bekele in Paris in 2003, and Olympic bronze medallist at the distance in Athens in 2004, behind El Guerrouj and Bekele – pushed the pace from the off. By the fifth of the six laps, the Kenyan had dropped all of his rivals, bar Bekele.
The pair slugged it out, shoulder to shoulder, before the start of the final circuit. Bekele made his move and was 10 metres clear within the blink of an eye. Attempting to counter the devastating turn of speed took its toll on Kipchoge, who faded out of the medal frame, crossing the line in fifth. Bekele’s winning margin was 14 seconds, Olympic 10,000m bronze medallist Zersenay Tadese of Eritrea coming through for second place, with Qatari Ahmad Hassan Abdullah in third.
“Running neck and neck with Kipchoge was a very difficult part of the race, but I believed my finish would be strong enough to win,” Bekele reflected. “These victories are more significant in my eyes than my previous ones, because in the past I had my fiancée with me, encouraging me.”
Bekele would go on to complete another world cross double in Fukuoka in 2006 and win a sixth long course title in Glasgow in 2008, making it a staggering record of 11 senior individual gold medals. He also racked up four world titles at 10,000m and one at 5000m, plus two Olympic crowns at 10,000m and one at 5000m.
Now 42, he stands third on the world all-time list over 26.2 miles and lines up in the London Marathon on 27 April looking for a top two placing for the second successive edition.
He was not, of course, the only double winner in Saint-Galmier two decades ago.
A dream come true
Two years after becoming the youngest ever winner of the world 5000m title on the track in Paris, Tirunesh Dibaba returned to French soil to claim the world cross country senior women’s long course title while still a teenager.
In doing so, the 19-year-old Ethiopian followed her cousin Deratu Tulu, a three-time winner, and went one better than her elder sister Ejegayehu, who had to settle for silver behind Benita Johnson in the rain and mud of Brussels in 2004.
Two months on from a world indoor 5000m record run in Boston, the ‘baby-faced assassin’ lived up to her sobriquet in the 8km race. Unleashing a killer kick 400 metres from home, Dibaba finished three seconds clear, Kenya’s Alice Timbilil edging Werknesh Kidane for second place. In the 4.2km short course event a day later, she kicked away from her Ethiopian teammate Kidane to win by a second.
As well as matching Bekele in Saint-Galmier, the devastating Dibaba followed Ireland’s Sonia O’Sullivan as only the second woman to achieve a world cross country double. “It’s a dream come true,” she said.
Via World Athletics