Kenenisa Bekele Aiming for Strong Race in Berlin

By Adam Kopet

Kenenisa Bekele of Ethiopia has announced he will be racing Sept. 29 at the Berlin Marathon.

Kenenisa Bekele will return to the fast streets of Berlin!

We are happy to announce that Kenenisa will return to Berlin on the 29th of September, where he hopes to regain the title he last won three years ago. pic.twitter.com/156g3pTznH

— NN Running Team (@NNRunningTeam) September 3, 2019

Bekele has had success in Berlin before. He won the 2016 race, after failing to make Ethiopia's Olympic team, running 2:03:03. At the time, it was the second-fastest time ever run. He now ranks fourth all-time.

However, Bekele has struggled since that race. He has finished two marathons, the 2017 and 2018 London Marathons. He has dropped out or withdrawn from four marathons in the past three years, including the 2017 Berlin Marathon.

Most recently, Bekele withdrew from this year's Tokyo Marathon in the weeks leading up to the race with a stress fracture.

Bekele, 37, is looking for a strong race in Berlin, needing put his recent past behind him. The one similarity between this year's Berlin Marathon and the 2016 race is Kenya's Eliud Kipchoge will not be there. Kipchoge has opted not to race an Abbott World Marathon Majors race this fall in favor of taking another shot at running a sub-2:00 exhibition race in Vienna next month.

In addition to having previous success in the marathon, Bekele was a dominant force on the track. He holds the world records for the 5,000 and 10,000 meters at 12:37.35 and 26:17.53, respectively. Bekele is a three-time Olympic champion and six-time world champion on the track. He also has won 11 senior world titles in cross country.