Tag Archives: Running

Genzebe Dibaba Wants More World Records: She and Coach Jama Aden Target Two Marks

May 27, 2014 Tadias Magazine

Tadias Magazine
By Sabrina Yohannes

Published: Tuesday, May 27th, 2014

New York (TADIAS) — Ethiopia’s Genzebe Dibaba smashed three world marks in two weeks in February, and she plans to attack two more world records this summer. She broke the indoor 1500m and 3000m records and two-mile world best in the winter, before taking 3000m world indoor championships gold in March, and she and her coach Jama Aden considered several outdoor records before the season began.

“I think she can take the mile and two-mile, the 2000,” said the Somali-born Aden in an interview. Genzebe lost her first race of the outdoor season in Doha, Qatar on May 9, but Aden said she’s still on track for her record-setting goals.

“We are still attacking the world records in the 2K and the two-miles,” he said, speaking some days after the Doha race. “She’ll run Ostrava on the 17th of June. She’ll run in the 2K in Ostrava. And then the two-mile, we haven’t set up yet.”

A women’s two-mile race has since been announced for the May 30-31 Prefontaine Classic meet in Eugene, Oregon featuring world 5000m medalist Mercy Cherono of Kenya, who finished ahead of Genzebe in Doha. Genzebe is not listed in that Eugene field, but the current world record in the two miles, 8:58:58, set by Ethiopia’s Meseret Defar in 2007, may just be threatened at the meet.

The 2000m world mark that Genzebe will chase in Ostrava in the Czech Republic is 5:25.36, set by Ireland’s Sonia O’Sullivan in 1994.

In the Doha Diamond League 3000m on May 9, Genzebe was in the lead when she was passed by Cherono and her world indoor medalist compatriot Hellen Obiri. Genzebe eventually drifted to 6th place.

“The race was tough,” said Genzebe in an interview. “I don’t know if it was the weather.” Though she didn’t offer it as an excuse, when asked about the fact that she sat on the Doha track immediately after the race and loosened her shoes, Genzebe said she had hurt her foot while training in spikes a week ahead of the race, causing her to change the shoes she used afterwards, and to also race in Doha with a bandaged foot. “In the hot weather, I experienced a burning sensation in my foot,” she said.

She had expected a challenge from Cherono, she said. “I know Mercy Cherono has speed over 5000 and 3000,” she said, but Obiri’s eventual triumph in the race wasn’t a surprise either. “Obiri is a very strong athlete,” she said. Both of those women were on Kenya’s world record-breaking 4 x 1500m team at the IAAF World Relays this past weekend, and will likely continue to challenge Genzebe in her endeavors this season.

“She didn’t know what went wrong, and she also had a little bit of soreness, but it wasn’t a major problem,” said Aden of Genzebe’s race in Doha, where she finished in 8:26.21.

“8:26 is her personal best, and it was not bad, but everybody else ran very well,” added Aden, who also commented that the pacemaking had not been ideal. Genzebe had previously run 8:37.00 for the distance outdoors. Her Doha vanquishers also slashed their previous bests, with Obiri running an African record 8:20.68, and Cherono 8:21.14.

“I was expecting 8:18, 8:16, 8:14, somewhere in between,” added Aden of Genzebe (whose indoor world record is 8:16.60, a 10-second improvement over her previous indoor best). “She’s in good shape. She trained very well.”

Genzebe is looking forward to several highlights in the season, including the Diamond League 3000/5000 series and the season-ending Continental Cup, which she aims to qualify for at the African championships.

“I want to run very fast in Rome in the 5000, not seeking a world record, but a personal best,” she said of the Rome Diamond League meet on June 5. “And I will focus on the 2000m and [two] mile events.”

Genzebe’s 5000m best is 14:37.56, which she ran in 2011. She has never run 2000m or two miles before outdoors, but clocked her 9:00.48 indoor two-mile world best in her debut over the distance indoors on February 15. She will be hoping to transfer the form that saw her set that mark and her 3:55.17 world indoor 1500m record on February 1 to the outdoor track.

“I’ve trained very well,” she said. “My work with Jama has been going great.”

She began training with him in the fall of 2012, after being introduced to him by Tirunesh’s Olympic silver-medalist husband Sileshi Sihine. Aden coaches Djibouti’s world indoor 1500m champion Ayanleh Souleiman, Sudan’s former world 800m champion Abubaker Kaki and others in and near Addis Ababa, and Genzebe joined the group.

“The idea came from Sileshi, as a matter of fact,” said Aden, whose expertise singled him out as a good candidate to coach Genzebe in her middle-distance ambitions.

The former world junior 5000m track and cross country champion Genzebe gives Aden a lot of credit for her recent success. “I would say that everything is due to him, and not just my efforts,” she said. “He helped me in my running and brought me to this level.”

“She was always a good athlete,” said Aden. “She hadn’t been working in the gym or done much hill work. … Now she does fartlek and hills with the boys, and really mixes it with the big boys, like Souleiman, like Musaeb Balla [of Qatar], like Kaki.”

“I was running 400m in 55 seconds,” said Genzebe, describing some of her outdoor workouts under Aden. She added that a valuable aspect of her work with him is his constant attention to the details of her daily sessions.

Aden developed a coaching career over many years, after having represented Somalia in the middle distances in the 1980s, including at the Los Angeles Olympics. “I studied at Fairleigh Dickinson University and did my graduate studies at George Mason in exercise physiology,” he said, of the American schools in New Jersey and the Washington D.C. metropolitan area. “I worked with Abdi Bile when Abdi was running.” Bile was a two-time 1500m world medalist for Somalia, taking gold in 1987 and bronze in 1993, and also contesting the 1996 Olympics.

“I created my own method of training,” said Aden. “I don’t ignore speed, I don’t ignore endurance, I don’t ignore strength. That’s been working with my athletes.”

“His work helped me achieve these results,” said Genzebe of her three indoor world marks. Now, coach and athlete both hope that she can add a couple more world records to her resume before the summer is over.
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Featured, London 2012

Two-time Olympic 10,000 Champion Tirunesh Dibaba Confirmed and Prepared for London 5000

August 4, 2012 Tadias Magazine

Tadias Magazine
Running | London 2012

By Sabrina Yohannes

London (TADIAS) – Tirunesh Dibaba of Ethiopia will run the first round of the 5000 meters at the 2012 Olympics on Tuesday just four days after defending her Beijing Olympic 10,000m crown in spectacular fashion in London.

“I’m very happy, this is my third gold,” said Dibaba Friday night after winning the 10,000 in 30 minutes 20.75 seconds ahead of Kenyans Sally Kipyego and Vivian Cheruiyot. “I’m ready to run the 5000, the decision is the federation’s.”

The Ethiopian athletic federation needed little persuasion. “She will run, 100%,” said the organization’s technical director, Dube Jilo.

The first woman to win the two events at one Olympiad when she accomplished the feat in 2008, Dibaba had been entered in the shorter event in London as a reserve, due to her having the fourth-fastest time for the distance this year among her compatriots. But with the federation also observing the fitness of the selected athletes during training, her potential double attempt had been anticipated.

Jilo praised the dominant fashion of her 10,000 victory. “To come from having being out with injury for two whole years and achieve this is a great accomplishment for her, and for us and for our country,” he said.

Dibaba returned to competition on New Year’s Eve after having suffered from injuries that kept her out of both the 2009 and 2011 world championships.

In the interim, she successfully defended her 2008 African 10,000m title in July 2010 in Nairobi defeating, among others, the hometown favorite Linet Masai, who had won the 2009 world championships race in the absence of Dibaba, then the defending world champion. The Ethiopian had also won both distance races at the 2005 world championships.

The 2009 world 5000 title went to Cheruiyot, who completed the double in Daegu in 2011, and coming into the London 10,000, the Kenyan was a favorite along with Dibaba.

“I wasn’t thinking about any individual athlete, I was thinking only about winning,” said Dibaba after her second straight Olympic 10,000m victory.

Prior to London, the Athens 5000m bronze medalist Dibaba had elaborated on her thoughts about Cheruiyot in an interview.

“Vivian has become much stronger than in the past,” she said. The two women did not race during the Kenyan’s red-hot 2011 season due to Dibaba’s injury layoff, but the Ethiopian pointed out that she had previously run against a rising Vivian Cheruiyot — and won.

“We raced in London,” said Dibaba, who won the 5000m in 14 minutes, 36.41 seconds to Cheruiyot’s 14:38.17 at the Crystal Palace on August 13, 2010, in addition to finishing ahead of the Kenyan at the world athletic final in Thessaloniki, Greece in September 2009. “She had just won the world championships 5000 when we raced. She was strong then too and she’s strong now.”

“We’ve run indoors as well as outdoors,” added Dibaba, who won the Edinburgh cross country and Birmingham indoor two-mile races in early 2010, over eight seconds ahead of Cheruiyot both times.

“I know Dibaba is a tough lady,” said Cheruiyot Friday night. “We are coming here to try our best because there is a time for everybody.”

“I’ve watched her race so many times and she can run really well, and she can close really well, and I respected that,” Kipyego, who took the lead at times in the race, said of Dibaba. “I tried to push the pace to try to make it painful for everybody. Unfortunately, it didn’t work on her.”

The three women will meet again in the 5000m in London, as both Cheruiyot and Kipyego are also doubling. That race will also include Dibaba’s teammate and rival Meseret Defar, the 2004 Olympic champion, whom Dibaba defeated over the distance in New York in June.

The Ethiopian women’s team entered in London comprised the nation’s three fastest 5000 runners of the year: Defar, former world indoor 1500 champion Gelete Burka and Genet Yalew. The event’s world record-holder Dibaba will replace the less experienced Yalew in the team.

“I will take a bit of a rest tomorrow and then I will prepare for the 5000 heats,” said Dibaba Friday. “I know I’ve trained well.”

The elimination round of the women’s 5000 takes place 10:55am on Tuesday morning, with the final set for 8:05pm Friday, August 10.
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Sabrina Yohannes is reporting from London.

News, Reviews

Ethiopians Handle the Heat and the Cool of End-of-Spring American Races

June 21, 2011 Tadias Magazine

Tadias Magazine
By Jason Jett

Updated: Tuesday, June 21, 2011

New York (Tadias) – A common misconception among U.S. runners and running enthusiasts is that Ethiopians are accustomed to hot weather and enjoy competing in it.

That association doubtlessly stems from the running prominence of Kenyans, their neighbors and athletic rivals to the South. However it is not necessarily true of Ethiopian runners, who develop their talent over high-altitude training grounds in and around the temperate capital of Addis Ababa.

Over the weekend Ethiopians triumphed in a range of weather conditions, claiming victories both in 80-degree heat at the Shelter Island 10K Run on Long Island, New York, and 48-degree chill at Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth, Minnesota.

Ethiopians won both the men’s and women’s divisions of the Saturday evening race in the Hamptons, where runners benefitted from a cloud cover but had to endure high humidity.

Kumsa Adugna, 25, the runner-up a year ago, this time won the race in 29:44. Ethiopians finishing in the top 10 were Girma Tolla, fourth, 30:04; Abiyot Endale, sixth, 30:49; Birhanu Feysa, seventh, 31:18 and Demesse Tefera, eighth, 32:50.

Tezeta Dengersa, 30, won the women’s race in 34:17, with Muliye Gurma, also of Washington, DC, finishing seventh in 38:57.

Saturday morning in the 35th Grandma’s Marathon in Minnesota, Yihunlish Delelecha Bekele, 29, won the female division in 2:30:38 while Teklu Deneke, 31, was the overall runner-up in a time of 2:12:17.

The runners set out on the course amid light rain and a temperature of 54 degrees that dropped to the high 40s as the race progressed. Many runners wore gloves, and their breath would fog as they exhaled.

It was Bekele’s second marathon victory in five weeks; she won the Dick’s Sporting Goods Pittsburgh Marathon on May 15. Finishing under 2:31 on Sunday earned her a $2,500 bonus on top of the $10,000 winner’s prize money. The time also reset her personal best from the 2:35:36 run last month in Pittsburgh.

“This victory was even sweeter because the time was so much better,” she told The Forum of Fargo Moorhead, MN, after the race in which runners were aided by a tailwind. “The weather was helpful.”

Bekele is enjoying her best season as a professional runner, having quit her job at a 7Eleven convenience store in Washington, DC, after deciding in order to be a successful athlete she had to devote more time to running.

Aziza Aliyu finished eighth among women in 2:36:55 at the Grandma’s Marathon. In the overall results, Asnake Fekadu was eighth in 2:14:20 and Tesfaye Duba finished 19th in 2:18:22

Derese Deniboba captured the Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon, a component of the marathon event in Duluth, by outsprinting fellow Ethiopian Tesfaye Alemayehu to finish in 1:02:19 and win by three seconds. Atalalech Asfaw was third in the women’s field, finishing in 1:16:49.

Deniboba broke the half-marathon course record, set in 2002, by two minutes.

“The weather was perfect,” said the Bronx, NY, resident. “It was not really that cold. The rain was not in your face, and there was a lot of downhill.”

The difference in weather was diametric on Long Island, where there was a 5:30 p.m. start for the 32nd Shelter Island 10K.

“I was very hot and humid,” said Endale, who added he pushed the pace early but was disappointed in his finish.

It did not take Endale long to begin feeling better. Sunday morning, 14 hours later, he finished runner-up to Adugna in the Portugal Day 5 Mile Run in New York City’s Central Park.

Ketema Nigusse was third, Girma Tolla was fourth, Fikadu Lemma was fifth and Girma Segni was sixth at that event, which started with a pleasant 71 degrees, 63 percent humidity and fair skies.

A week earlier in Central Park, women had started the NYRR New York Mini 10K with the mercury at 69 degrees but with 96 percent humidity and cloudy skies.

That world-class competition was won by Linet Masai of Kenya in 31:40, with Ethiopians Aheza Kiros (32:09) and Belainish Gebre (32:10) finishing second and third.

Aliyu was 20th in 34:25, Hirut Mandefro was 24th in 34:35, Gurma was 31st in 37:29 and Alem Ashebir was 32nd in 37:50
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About the Author:
Jason Jett is a New York based freelance journalist.

Cover image: Kumsa Adugna of Ethiopia posted a winning time of 29 minutes 44 seconds at the
Shelter Island 10K Run on Long Island, New York. (Garret Meade/Riverhead News)

Video: Shelter Island 10K Run (New York)

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