At the 2008 World Cross Country Championships in Edinburgh, Scotland, a few miles into the senior men’s 12K race, Kenenisa Bekele’s shoe came off. I was in that race, and I remember hearing the announcer’s breathless play-by-play of the incident and thinking, “Wow, I might actually get to be in front of the GOAT in a race!” Alas, it was not to be. Bekele stopped, undid his dislodged shoe, pulled it back on, re-tied it, and set off again. I never even got within sight of him, and he went on to notch his record-extending 11th individual cross country gold medal.
By that time, the Ethiopian superstar already held the track world records over 5,000 and 10,000 meters. Later that summer, he won both events at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. He was at the height of his powers, and few would have disputed that he was the greatest long-distance runner the world had ever seen. Since then, though, Uganda’s Joshua Cheptegei has broken both of Bekele’s track world records, and Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge’s rise as the philosopher-king of the marathon has brought him greater renown than Bekele ever received. Bekele’s current…
