By Curtis Anderson
The Register-Guard
Ethiopia’s Kenenisa Bekele would like his first outdoor race in the United States to be a memorable one.
The reigning World and Olympic champion in
the 10,000 meters will attempt to break his own world record in that
event at the 34th annual Prefontaine Classic on June 8 at Hayward Field.
The 25-year-old Bekele set his current
standard of 26 minutes, 17.53 seconds at the Memorial Van Damme in
Brussels on Aug. 26, 2005.
“The record is not easy,” said Bekele’s
manager, Jos Hermens, from his office in The Netherlands on Monday.
“But this is an absolutely serious attempt. His training is going well,
and he is 100 percent ‘go’ for the record.”
Bekele, who also holds the 5,000 world
record, is scheduled to run at 9:30 a.m., before the start of the other
Pre Classic events to take advantage of what should be optimal weather
conditions.
“We compiled 20 years of data about wind
conditions, humidity, temperature, you name it,” Pre Classic meet
director Tom Jordan said. “The conditions are slightly better during
the morning than the evening.”
Bekele is the world’s most decorated distance runner.
In 2004, he won the Olympic gold medal in the 10,000, and set the 5K world record of.....
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