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Reuters Internet Delivery System
Track and Field News Wire

By Sabrina Yohannes

NEW YORK, May 8 - Olympic 10,000 metres champion Kenenisa Bekele is
aiming for a fast time in his opening race of the northern outdoor
season at an international meeting in Hengelo, Netherlands on May 29.

Bekele's manager Jos Hermens told Reuters Bekele had been training in
the United States since the middle of last month.

"He's doing very well," Hermens said.

Ethiopian Bekele lost two indoor track races this year while mourning
the sudden death of his teenage fiancee Alem Techalem in January.
Devastated by the tragedy, Bekele's training was interrupted but he
rallied to win his fourth world cross country double in March while
replicating his 2004 feat of leading Ethiopia to the men's team
titles.

Last year in Hengelo, Bekele broke his distinguished compatriot Haile
Gebrselassie's 5,000 metres record. He captured Gebrselassie's 10,000
mark nine days later and then won the Olympic 10,000 gold and 1,500
silver.

The Hengelo meeting had traditionally been the outdoor season opener
for the 1996 and 2000 Olympic 10,000 champion Gebrselassie, who set
several world records there before retiring from the track after the
Athens Olympics to focus on the marathon and road races.

In Hengelo, Bekele will be joined in the 10,000 by Abebe Dinkessa and
2001 world silver medallist Assefa Mezgebu. The field is also
scheduled to include Uganda's world junior champion Boniface Kiprop
and Tanzania's 2002 world cross country silver medallist John Yuda.

World women's junior cross country champion Gelete Burka, who won the
Ethiopian 1,500 metres title on Tuesday, will contest the same event
in Hengelo.

Bekele's team mate and Olympic 10,000 metres silver medallist Sileshi
Sihine will run the 5,000 metres.

Hermens said Bekele was still considering whether to attempt a
5,000-10,000 double in Helsinki. Two years ago he finished first in
the 10,000 and third in the 5,000 at the Paris world championships.

ENDS

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