Monday, March 31, 2008

What They Didn't Tell You: March 31st

World Cross. No 3-athlete limits for the Africans. No short course. Nowhere for the Mazungo to hide. And, set in Scotland - self-described as wild and sexy (note: Scotland, you will be hearing from my lawyers) - you just knew there would be plenty of excitement. So, everything they didn't tell you from this weekend, after the jump...

Kenenisa Bekele lost his shoe yet still threw down king-of-the-mountain-style to win what is essentially running's Royal Rumble. And his wife almost passed out in the excitement. The normally reserved Bekele, though, was overheard commenting to an acquaintance after the race: "Eh, it's really a pretty common sequence in our household. I lose an article of clothing, she almost faints in excitement, but then she rallies, I move to the front and I end up... winning. Oh [deep voice] YEAH."

Jorge Torres took 19th which was a pretty darn solid showing for a guy that generally would squeak into a World-Level track final. This coming after a stretch of less-than-his-best showings, naturally, got pessimists speculating. But rest your minds, as the actual explanation is much simpler than drugs: Torres placed in the top 20 because he is 1/20th East African.

The US Senior team, as a whole, didn't quite have the world-beating showing we all would have liked to see. But, it turns out, that was due in large part because James Carney kept tugging on his teammates singlets and asking them to look in the crowd to verify that his eyes weren't playing tricks, and that he had, in fact, seen DuckTales' Flintheart Goldgrom. (pictured @ R)

Carney had also started his morning with a bottle of Scotch.

The above photo of Bekele has been floating around with the explanation that he celebrated his World Cross long-course victory by "dressing up like an old Scottish dude." Wholly inaccurate. An old Scottish dude had actually dressed up like Kenny Bekele for the race. Which he won. Impressive.

No comments: