webd wrote:
"Why is Tariku going to suddenly trounce his brother after never beating him before?"
Well Tariku got the faster PR over 3k and his current form is superb. It seems like you didn't noticed the humid conditions in that 5k, you can only compare the time to others in the race. 9.5 sec down to 2nd place Micah Kogo says it all.
Tariku is young and it's reasonable to think he improved more than his brother over the last year. It's still early season and my guess is that Kenenisa is pretty far off from peak performance, his race in Hengelo was OK nothing more.
I'll give you that Tariku's recent 5k was better than I am giving credit for. I didn't study the results closely, and yes, beating Kogo easily and having several other top runners finish with slow times shows that T. Bekele ran fast in tough conditions. Hey, I've been saying for awhile that I think he could run as fast as his brother.......some day.
You mention that T. has a faster 3k than K. Well, K's 2-mile is superior to T's 3k, and K. just hasn't run a top race at 3k yet. He certainly can though.
Maybe this will be the year T. challenges his brother. But I don't see predicting T will beat him so soon based on one good 5k in tough conditions and also just because K. has mentioned that he has been struggling. T. has not won a race against a stacked field yet, and K has won TOOOONS of such races. Big difference.