The 17 year-old Tariku Bekele, brother of Ethiopia’s World and Olympic
10,000m champion Kenenisa, won the men’s race, while Kenyan Alice
Timbilil took the women’s category win at the Oeiras International, the
first IAAF Cross Country Permit race of the 2004/2005 season. Everyone already
knows Kenenisa Bekele’s talent, the winner of last year’s race and
of course, the six-time World Cross Country champion. This year he didn’t
come to defend his title (which he won in 2002 and 2003) but his younger
brother Tariku managed to keep the Oeiras trophy in the family in what turned
out to be a very interesting race.
Paul Tergat, who was second, said that he intends to run marathon races in
London and Berlin in 2005.