He did not lose any race in 10 thousand meters from 2003 to 2011: Who is Kenenisa Bekele?

Kenenisa Bekele is a long-distance runner who holds world and Olympic records in the 5000 and 1000 meters categories. He did not lose a race in the 10 thousand meters from 2003 to 2011 and became the most successful athlete in the history of the World Cross Country Championships with six long and five short-distance titles.

Kenenisa Bekele was born on June 13, 1982, in Bekoji, a small town in the Oromia Region of Ethiopia, as the second child of a family of six children.

Bekoloji town is very famous for training world and Olympic champion athletes. 10 thousand meters 1992 Olympic Champion Derartu Tulu and women's marathon 1996 Olympic champion Fatuma Roba were also born and raised in Bekoji.

Kenenisa Bekele Beyecha (born 13 June 1982) is an Ethiopian long-distance runner. He was the world record holder in both the 5,000-metre and 10,000-metre from 2004 until 2020. He won the gold medal in both the 5,000 m and 10,000 m events at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. At the 2004 Olympics, he won the gold medal in the 10,000 m and the silver medal in the 5,000 m.

For as long as he can remember, Bekele started running everywhere, like the other children in the town and grew up taking these champions as an example. Sentayenu Yehetu, the town's physical education and athletics teacher, was the first to discover Bekele and was the coach of the town's other champions.

She began to employ Bekele privately from the age of 14. Bekele won his first title in inter-school races at the age of 15. At the age of 17, Bekele ranked first in the state and was selected for the national team in the youth category. In the same year, he became sixth in the world in the 5000 meters.

HE BRAKED HIS FIRST RECORD AT THE AGE OF 19

Bekele's first international title came at the age of 19. He broke the world junior record with a time of 7.30 in the 3000-meter race held in Brussels in 2001. For five years, from 2002 to 2006, he became both the long and short-distance champion at the World Cross Country Championships, a feat no athlete had achieved before. While his success continued unabated, he broke the world records in 5 5,000 meters, 10 thousand meters, and 5 thousand meters in 2004, held in the same year on the last straight before Athens.

Between 2002 and 2006, he broke a new record by finishing first 5 times in a row in both the 4-kilometer short and 12-kilometer long cross-country races. At the World Championships held in Paris in 2003, he won the gold medal in the 10 thousand meters and the bronze medal in the 5 thousand meters. The most important feature that differentiated Bekele from other athletes was his sprints in the last 200 meters towards the end of the race. He came first in the 10 thousand meters and second in the 5 thousand meters at the 2004 Athens Olympics. This was the first Olympic championship.

THE FIRST ATHLETE TO REACH THE QUADRUPLE CHAMPIONSHIP

On January 4, 2005, he and his 18-year-old fiancée, Alem Techale, who was also an athlete, died of a heart attack while they were training together. Bekele was very shaken by this unexpected death and embraced athletics even more to overcome this trauma. First, he lost the 3,000-meter indoor race in which he participated on January 29. Bekele made an attack 1.5 laps before the end of the race, thinking there were 0.5 laps left. This situation was attributed to his mood.

A few weeks later, the Ethiopian was replaced by his compatriot Markos Geneti. After these losses, he went to the 2005 World Cross Country Championship in March, where he tried to defend his titles, and regained the championship title in the short distance. Bekele won the gold medal at the 2005 World Championships with his performance in the last 200 meters of the 10,000 meters and virtually returned to the track. Bekele won the 3,000-meter race at the World Indoor Championships in Moscow on March 12, 2006, thus becoming the first athlete in the history of athletics to reach all the Olympic, world, world indoor, and world cross country championships.

OLYMPIC CHAMPION AGAIN

Bekele won the gold medal in the 10 thousand meters final at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, breaking the Olympic record with a time of 27.01. In the competition where 20 athletes went under 28 minutes and four athletes went under Bekele's Olympic record of 27.05 set in 2004, the Ethiopian athlete ran the last 400 meters in 53.42 and became the first.

In the 5 thousand meters final, he won the gold medal with a time of 12.57, lowering Said Aouita's Olympic record by approximately eight seconds. The athlete, who won the championship in both 10 thousand and 5 thousand meters in Beijing, was among those who achieved this success, Hannes Kolehmainen (1912), Emil Zátopek (1952), Vladimir Kuts (1956), Lasse Virén (twice in 1972 and 1976) and Miruts. He made his name among athletes such as Yifter (1980). In his marathon racing career, which started in 2014, he came first in the 2014 Paris, and 2016 Berlin Marathons and 2nd in the 2017 London Marathons.

Bekele currently lives in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, with his three children and his wife.