Bekele to Make Marathon Debut in Paris

Published by IAAF on January 9, 2014

Triple Olympic gold medallist Kenenisa Bekele will make his long-awaited debut over the classic distance on 6 April at the Schneider Electric Marathon de Paris, an IAAF Gold Label Road Race.

Dominant for so long on the track and cross country, Bekele’s string of 10,000m victories finally came to an end when he failed to finish at the 2011 IAAF World Championships. One year later he finished outside of the medals in fourth place at the London 2012 Olympic Games.

But since then, the 5000m and 10,000m world record-holder has made a promising transition to the roads. In September last year he won the Great North Run after an exciting battle with world and Olympic champion Mo Farah and legendary Ethiopian Haile Gebrselassie.

The 31-year-old Ethiopian has upped his mileage and has been doing a three-hour run each week in preparation for his first race over 26.2 miles.

“If I am going to do a marathon, of course I want to win,” said Bekele, who will compete at this weekend's Great Edinburgh Cross Country. “I want to have a good result. I am not going to run to lose or just for a bad result. Everybody, not only me, feels that when you are going to compete, you are going to try to win the race.