7 July, 2009
RAB Developmental Athletes storm project competition in Asella
Last week Asella Stadium hosted an Ethiopian Athletics Federation Youth Development Project competition. The purpose of this competition is to allow athletes to represent the youth development project with which they train. The RAB athletes are in some senses ‘alums’ of the Arsi Zone Youth Development Project, because they trained with the project as teenagers but have since relocated to join the RAB camp in Addis Ababa. However according to the rules as stated by Arsi Zone Youth and Sport Vice-Chief Abdulay Hammu, they were still eligible to compete last weekend on behalf of the project.
In accord with the philosophy that the projects are aimed at developing youth athletes, only junior athletes recognized as under 19 years of age are eligible to compete. This excluded about half of the RAB athletes. Of the remaining ones, Seada Nura and Dunkane Keba decided, together with RAB Coach Melaku Deresse, that they would not compete this weekend as it would have represented their third race in as many weeks. With an important half-marathon championship coming up in August, they needed to get back to some uninterrupted training.
For other junior athletes in the camp, however, this competition represented a good opportunity. Endale Mekonnen for instance missed a week of training last month due to illness and has been spending the past several weeks returning to form. He had run a 4km relay leg on the ‘B’ team at the Ring Road Relay on 22 June, but this was a chance to compete as an individual at a distance more within his range, thereby checking his fitness. He was entered in the 10000m. Then Daniel Alemu, the camp’s middle distance athlete, was happy to have the chance to run a track race despite the domestic season being finished. His last track race was a stellar 3:46 1500m run in Addis Ababa Stadium at a national-level race, his first time ever running on a tartan track. This race last weekend was back to the dirt track in Asella on which he grew up competing, but he still looked forward to producing a strong performance.
The other athletes recruited for the competition were Haptamu Getonoho and Aman Dhaqabi Sufo. Like the girls, they had raced both of the previous weekends. However they were both in good health and it was determined that a low-keyed 10km competition would not seriously threaten them, but would be of great benefit toward representing the Arsi Zone youth development project. Both of these athletes performed notably well under high pressure the past two weeks in national-level relay events; the race this week would not require the same level of effort.
As perhaps could have been expected, this pair entering the competition was a bit like a pair of high-performing college freshmen in the USA entering a secondary school race. They cruised to a 1-2 finish, posting times of 30:18.0 by Haptamu and 30:18.3 by Aman. Then Endila ran tough and followed up with a very solid 4th place finish in 31:08.5!
These times may sound unremarkable, when after all Kenenisa Bekele won the last Olympic games in 27:01 and even the women’s race was won by Tirunesh Dibaba in 29:54. But consider that back in March, less than 4 months ago, the highest-level performer of all the developmental athletes was Eda’O Hussen Welge who ran 30:16 on a tartan track in Addis Ababa stadium at a national-level meet, and the others ran between 30:40 and 31:00 on a dirt track to be knocked out at the regional or zonal level. Now, in July, Haptamu and Aman matched the performance of Eda’O but on a rough dirt track, and Endila just returning to fitness still managed to get back into the range that previously represented peak performance for all the athletes. He was just 28 seconds off his PB of 30:40 and there is every indication he can gather himself for a strong half-marathon performance in August.
Later on in the 1500 competition Daniel suffered a defeat, something he has rarely experienced at the regional level, but nonetheless ran 3:49.6 for 2nd place. Again this was a performance that looked impressive by comparison: when Daniel won the regional championships in the 1500 in late March his time was 3:49.2. At that time he was in the midst of an intensive track-focused training segment, preparing to peak for an upcoming national competition. Lately he has taken advantage of the break in important domestic track races to work on his endurance, a situation helped by training with a group of 10k/21k specialists and also Melaku whose most impressive coaching credentials lie in the endurance events. But still off of the strength training he came and ran the same time this weekend in July.
Haptamu and Aman based on their outstanding performance in the 10000m have been selected to run at the Ethiopian Youth Track and Field Championships, to be held in two weeks from July 21st to 26th. A decision will be made by Coach Melaku as to whether this competition can be fit into the training program without compromising the goal of peak performances at the Sulutaa Half-Marathon in August.
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