March 14, 2008

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia - Five-time double World cross country champion Kenenisa Bekele and two-time female long course champion Tirunesh Dibaba will lead Ethiopia’s strong team for the 36th IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Edinburgh, Scotland (30 March 2008).

But Bekele and Dibaba are not the only strong favourites in this team hoping to heal the wounds of a disastrous outing last year in Mombasa where the country was reduced to two individual medals and a single team title, its worst showing in its twenty-seven-year competition history.

Senior men - Bekele returns for revenge

The peak of the selections is the return of Bekele to the World cross country just over a year to the day he dropped out at the end of the fourth lap in Mombasa. Although initially doubting whether he would ever return to the form that has seen him win five back-to-back short and long course titles, the 25-year-old returned to his old all-conquering self to win a second world 10,000m title in Osaka.