The most complete endurance athlete in the history of cross-country running doubts whether he can do any of it again. "The motivation may not be there any more," said Kenenisa Bekele yesterday.
The Ethiopian maestro, who has won 11 world cross-country titles, arrived in Scotland for today's Great Edinburgh International Cross-Country at Holyrood. It is the venue for next year's world championships, but Bekele said categorically that he will never run the world cross event again.
Well, we are used to that. He has professed as much twice before. He also said he would not contest the World Indoor Championships last year, yet then went on to win the 3000 metres crown in Moscow.
Yesterday, however, he was unequivocal. "Last year in Japan was my last," he said. "It's too much. I won both races for five years, plus one junior title. It's a lot, you know."
The Edinburgh course in the shadow of Arthur's Seat will not lure him back. Asked if he might return for the world event there, he added: "If I say it is the last, I can't change it."
The 24-year-old Bekele has not simply fallen out of love with cross-country. He raised doubts as to whether he retains the appetite which has driven him to sweep all before him, and most memorably when he was in mourning for his fiance, who died of an unexplained heart complaint while training with him two years ago.
"I don't know if I have the same hunger," he confided, looking out on the rain and wind-lashed course. "That's why I won't do the world-cross again. I still want to improve my times, run fast on the track. I may try for some world records this year. I don't know where, or which one, either the 5000 or 10,000 metres. They are both my favourite events, but I think the 5000m record is harder."
There is no question of him doubling up, however, at the World Championship in Osaka, or at the Beijing Olympics next year: "It's better to do one race well than two races badly."
He says he will race a few times indoors this winter, and admits that the marathon interests him. "But not this year. I don't know where or when. In the future." He wants to fully explore his track prowess.
Bekele has never been boastful, never asserts that he will win. But the man who has remained unbeaten at cross-country since December 2001, may just prove vulnerable today, though he insists he is fit and ready to race.
"I was tired last year year," he said, recalling how late on he had to dig deep to catch steeplechaser Saif Saeed Shaheen on this Holyrood course. "This year I have prepared myself."
He will need to be ready. Today's field includes Eliud Kipchoge and Zersenay Tadesse, though the British embassy in Uganda has helped Bekele by delaying a visa for Commonwealth 10,000 metres champion Boniface Kiprop.
The Kenyan, Kipchoge, is the former world 5000m champion and set a world best for 10,000m on the road on Hogmanay. Tadesse, world road-running champion from Eritrea, will have 200 supporters from all over Britain, including, he says, a busload from Glasgow.
Mo Farah, Britain's European champion, has much to live up to in the international 4k race on the programme which starts at 10am and includes the Scottish Inter-district event.
He insists he is not avoiding Bekele. "It's only a month since I won the title in Italy and since then I've had two very hard races," said Farah, "and last Sunday's in Amorebieta was much harder than my European Championships victory. It stretched me to the limit and I finished worn out, sixth. Being realistic, I think it will be another year before I'm ready to move up to that level, and that's dependent on staying injury-free."
There was an angry reaction from the organisers, Nova, and sponsors EventScotland when it emerged that Kiprop, had been marooned without a visa at home in Uganda.
Despite having applied well before Christmas, and after several visits, he was told to return on Monday. "He spent five hours at the embassy in Kampala yesterday, and has been there several times this week," said manager Ricky Simms.
Kiprop is Uganda's best known athlete: world junior 10,000m track champion on the track, and twice runner-up in the world junior cross-country championships before finishing fourth in both the Olympics and world championships.
Twelve months ago, the Dibaba sisters arrived at Heathrow en route for Edinburgh. Despite having valid UK visas, immigration authorities forced them to remain overnight in terminal four with only T-shirts for blankets. This is exactly the kind of bureaucratic bungling which could rebound on Glasgow's bid for the 2014 Commonwealth Games.
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