The leaders walk in the offices manipulating the athletics, stretching it, squeezing it, to take it beyond modernity, they say, although in reality they only aspire to fill their pockets. The horrifying Doha World Cup, with its insane humidity and empty bleachers, is the great example, but also the experiment that Eliud Kipchoge will conduct in 15 days in Vienna. The best marathoner in history in the hands of brands to run alone and with multiple illegal aids in pursuit of an advertising hook: get off two hours.
That innocent yearning to bring together the fastest men and women and make them compete to see who wins - 'Citius, altius and fortius' - has possibly been permanently deformed.
Although we will always have comfort. In the middle of the Doha World Cup, the Berlin marathon is celebrated and reminds us of the beauty of the legendary distance, its honesty and cruelty. Kenenisa Bekele , who was everything on the track from 2003 to 2009, recovers the poetics of running on the way to the Brandenburg Gate and shows that there is nothing more attractive than that. Only the impossible is missing: in a comeback, as three years ago, for the clock at 2:01:41 and, therefore, it is two seconds away from the record that last year, in the same place, Kipchoge established.
Again, Bekele weighed his rhythm drop around kilometer 30, although again his last kilometers were majestic, a gift for humanity except for the Ethiopian Birhanu Legese and Sisay Lemma , who were overcome.
That Bekele is in these scenarios at 37 is not only a miracle of longevity, it is also of resistance. Because for many years his passage to the marathon seemed more a mistake than a success. To the former king of 5,000 and 10,000, the distance of distances received him with a discreet result - fourth in Chicago 2014 - and a difficult injury in the Achilles and in his surroundings the withdrawal was assessed, without any need to continue suffering. But Bekele insisted.
In Berlin 2016 he already announced that he was the closest human being to Kipchoge (2:03:03) and this time, after some failed attempts, such as Berlin 2017, he confirmed it. From now on who knows if he can beat the world record and shave with it so many folly and so many experiments. The old athletics lives.
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