After the race, we spoke with Hermens, who explained that Bekele stepped on a stone in training about three weeks ago. Initially, Bekele didn’t feel anything, but after a couple of days, he developed an injury to his sacrum (which Bekele believed stemmed from stepping on the stone). Ideally, Hermens said, Bekele would have taken two to three weeks off in order to rest up and get healthy, but with the race so close, he could not afford to do that. Instead, he pushed through in training, and the result was that he did not show up to the start line in Amsterdam at 100%.
This actually sounds like classic Rupp.