Dinkesa shocks 'em
Abebe Dinkesa
With an injection of pace akin to many of his Ethiopian endurance running forefathers, Abebe Dinkesa upstaged the favourites at today’s Great North Winter Run cross country event at a windswept Holyrood Park in Edinburgh.
In what can be described as breezy conditions the early running was a predictable group, which didn’t really whittle down until well into the second half of the 8.9km race. The loaded field – that included the in-form Eliud Kipchoge fresh from his win at the rather snowy Campaccio XC event in Italy, 2007 World Champ Zersenay Tadese and 2008 European champion, and Campaccio runner-up, Sergiy Lebid – then really spilt up as Kichoege, Tadese, Uganda’s Boniface Kiprop and Kipchoge’s fellow Kenyan Augustine Choge took up the reins.
As the now group of 6 hit the last of the 1.6km laps Dinkese struck, and quickly sprinted into a 20 metre lead. He held this all the way to foot of the climb for the last time and even extended it on the run in, easing up to win by a handful of seconds from Mangata Ndiwa of Kenya, another surprise performance, and the fast-finishing Tadese. The Eritrean can be excused for lacking sharpness as he prepares for this year’s London marathon, and is reputedly in the middle of a 150 mile-a-week block of training. However, as the BBC commentator Brendan Foster stated the favourites were “caught napping” with Dinkese’s hijack. Whatever your view it was a great move and fortune favoured the brave Ethiopian for a classy win.
Scot Andy Lemoncello held onto the coat tails of the Africans for 2 laps but faded badly in the latter stages, so much so that he was over taken by fellow UK athlete Frank Tickner to win the ‘first Briton’ contest.
Lemoncello - faded
Leading placings
1 Abebe Dinkesa (ETH) 26:51
2 Mang’ata Ndiwa (KEN) 26:54
3 Zersenay Tadese (ERI) 26:55
4 Eliud Kipchoge (KEN) 26:58
5 Boniface Kiprop (UGA) 26:59
6 Mike Kipyego (KEN) 27:06
