Ethiopians turn mental strength into gold
(Reuters)
Updated: 2005-09-28 10:12

"They get distracted and are married when they should be running. Some fall victims to bad influence from the wrong people who exploit them and are only interested in their money."

WORST PERFORMANCE

Kenya, which has watched some of its best athletes defect to Gulf states in return for financial rewards, suffered its worst world championship performance in years, winning only one gold in Helsinki -- for Benjamin Limo in the 5,000 metres.

Hermens said Kenya's poor performance came despite the country having a better athletics system than Ethiopia.

"Although Ethiopia has 70 million people, compared to Kenya's 30 million, the latter has more depth in athletics talent, a better infrastructure and system of identifying talented athletes," Hermens said.

Kenya has some 2,000 international athletes running in road races and marathons across the world, while Ethiopia has a national squad of only 120 athletes, running all distances but mainly from 1,500 metres up.

Former British cross-country and marathon runner Richard Nerurkar, who organises the annual Great Ethiopian 10-kilometre Run in Addis Ababa, said there were far fewer managers handling Ethiopians than Kenyans which made selection for global competitions much easier.

"There are lots of reasons for this, some to do with how the Kenyan and Ethiopian federations operate, some to do with language (English is much more widely spoken in Kenya) and some also to do with the ease or otherwise of obtaining visas to travel overseas," he said.

Athletics Kenya officials have accused money-conscious managers of entering their athletes in too many meetings, affecting their performances at events such as the world championships.

HARD TRAINING

Nerurkar said Ethiopian athletes had simple aspirations and wanted to follow in the footsteps of the country's heroes of distance running.

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