Kenenisa Bekele (born June 13, 1982, Ethiopia) is an
Ethiopian distance runner holding as of 2008 the
world records in the 5000 meters and 10,000 meters.
Kenenisa Bekele won the gold medal in the 10,000 m
and the silver in the 5,000 m at the 2004 Athens
Olympics. He won the Gold in the 10,000 m at the
2003 World Championships in Athletics at Paris
completing an Ethiopian sweep with Haile
Gebrselassie(2nd) and Sileshi Sihine(3rd), and also
won 10,000 m at the 2005 World Championships in
Athletics (with Sileshi Sihine(2nd)), a result
replicated at the 2007 World Championships. He also
won the bronze in the 5,000 m at the 2003 World
Championships in Athletics.
He is the older brother of Tariku Bekele.
He was born in 1982 at Bekoji, a town in the Oromia
Region of Ethiopia.
For five years in a row, from 2002 through 2006, he
took both short (4K) and long (12K) races at the
IAAF World Cross Country Championships, a feat no
other runner has accomplished even once. In 2004, he
broke the world records for the indoor 5,000 m,
outdoor 5,000 m and outdoor 10,000 m.
Bekele is renowned for his ability to accelerate
very quickly at the end of a long distance race; in
Oslo, Norway in June 2003, Bekele chased after
Kenyan Abraham Chebii and ran a 54.64 final 400 to
win the race in 12:52.26. Again in Lausanne,
Switzerland on July 1, 2003, Bekele recorded a 200 m
segment during the last lap in 24 seconds and a 100
m section in 11.xx seconds to run a 52.63 final lap.
Bekele has faced his mentor Haile Gebrselassie once
in road competition, once in cross country, and five
times on the track. Gebrselassie defeated Bekele on
the track in the 2000 Nurnberg 5,000 meters, the
2001 Great Ethiopian Run 10 km, and the Cross de
l'Acier in December of 2001, but lost to Bekele in
Hengelo 2003 over 10,000 m (26:53 to 26:54), Rome
2003 over 5000 m (12:57 to 13:00), Paris 2003 World
Championships over 10,000 m (26:49 to 26:50), and
Athens 2004 Olympic Games (27:05 to 27:27).
