From: yohannes debesai (ydebesai@yahoo.com)
Date: Mon Jan 26 2009 - 16:43:58 EST
Teklemariam Medhin registers Greatest Victory
Teklemariam Medhin who has been in Spain for over a month now gets a second and best 1st place victory.
This victory will put him in the iaaf list of elite runners who will potentially take headline news in the world's highest athletics organization. This vicotry has put him on the top of the head lines of www.iaaf.org.
Teklemariam Medhin is on of the four Eritrean Olympians who received the Special EAAA Olympics Award this month for his splendid performance in Beijing Olympics at the 10,000 m together with Kidane and Zerisenay Tadesse.
Our utmost admiration and congratulatory message goes to Teklemariam !
Yohannes Debesai
Eritrean American Athletics Association
EAAA: Aspiring to Uplift Eritrea in Athletics
Medhin and Kalovics impress over the country in San Sebastián
Eritrea’s Teklemarian Medhin wins in San Sebastián, Spain (Mertxe Sueskun)
San Sebastián, Spain - Eritrea’s Teklemarian Medhin and Hungary’s Aniko Kalovics snatched unchallenged victories at the ‘54th Cross Internacional de San Sebastián’ held on Sunday (25) on a windy and rainy day for weather.
MEN – Medhin, a star in the making?
In the men’s 10km event Kenya’s Micah Kogo was regarded the pre-race favourite as the reigning Olympic 10,000m bronze medallist had already proved to be in fine form this winter following a hat trick of successes in Houilles (28 December), Trier (31 Dec) and more recently in Le Mans (18 January).
With rain, and wind gusts of over 100km per hour, the race kicked off conservatively at the 7km point a large group of seven athletes were still in contention - the Kenyan pair of Kogo and last year’s victor Kiprono Menjo, Ukraine’s Sergey Lebid, the Spanish trio of Carlos Castillejo, José Ríos and Iván Galán, and the 19-year-old Medhin. The Eritrean was fresh from a respectable seventh place at the IAAF XC permit in Seville last Sunday (18) against one of the high quality cross country fields assembled this season.
Ríos and Castillejo made most of the pace but the Africans and Lebid ran effortlessly at their shoulders.
Medhin, who is coached in Madrid by Jerónimo Bravo, made his move with 22 minutes on the clock and from then on he startled a knowledgeable crowd which over the decades have witnessed performances here from legends such as Mamo Wolde, David Bedford, John Ngugi and Derartu Tulu.
Such was the terrific pace dictated by Medhin that not even the in-form Kogo managed to stay touch with the gifted Eritrean, who extended his lead over the closing three kilometres.
Kogo, Menjo and Lebid formed the chasing group with Kogo making the pace duties but with one kilometre left Lebid faltered and lost ground with the Kenyan pair.
While the long-legged Medhin, who won the Fuensalida XC race on 11 January, ran smoothly at the front, the interest turned to the fierce battle for the minor places between Kogo and Menjo with the former prevailing thanks to a late burst of speed with 150m to go.
Medhin was timed at 31:47 with a six-second margin of victory on Kogo, holder of an impressive 10,000m track PB of 26:35.63, while the ‘defending champion’ Menjo had to settle for third on this occasion another five second in arrears.
The efforts of the eight-time European XC champion Lebid were not enough to challenge for a podium place although he bounced back from last year’s below par performance when he suffered fever and was never a factor at all in the race. The 33-year-old Ukrainian took fourth on this occasion some 17 seconds behind the winner but still 20 seconds ahead Spain’s former European 10,000m bronze medallist José Ríos, who completed a classy top-five.
“Persistence is the twin sister of excellence. One is a matter of quality; the other, a matter of time.”
“Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles, discouragement, and impossibilities: It is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak” Thomas Carlyle .
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